Ripples
by Margravine
Summary: We all know the legends of the heroes and heroines who fought and overcame the Dark Lord. But what of the countless forgotten lives given in silent defiance of the Dark? Enter the hidden depths of the Department of Mysteries and view the archives...
1. Prologue

Prologue

I am a woman. I am a witch. My eyes are brown, my hair is browner. I am a daughter, a sister, a lover and a friend. I am blessed beyond comparison. I am cursed with the heaviest of all burdens. I am young. I am ancient. But before all else, I am an Unspeakable.

The Department of Mysteries, feared by many and intriguing to most, owns more than my life. I have given it my very soul, poured into it every fibre of my being, my very essence. In death, as in life, some shadow of my former vibrant self may linger here, drifting its halls in silent contemplation of the wonders that lie hidden here, far beyond the dreams of man. Far greater wizards and witches than I have laid down their lives to protect its secrets and keep the world unchanged.

To have reached this far, as you must have, to be able to hear these words which I charm with care onto the single oak door to the Chamber, you must be exceedingly worthy. It takes not only great power, but cunning, wisdom, and an inherent nobility of heart to have penetrated the mysteries so deeply. Or perhaps this is only what I tell myself, in the hope that my life's work will not be in squandered, but cherished as it was meant to, a torch for future generations, illuminating their future as it enriches their past.

The struggle against the Dark stretches back into the beginning of the wizarding history, long before the time of even Salazar. Dark Lords have come and gone, rising again, to be vanquished by the blood of heroes. Men and women were cut down in the flower of their youth, broken before they could blossom, withered so that they grew old in bitter futility. Not one but three generations had their hopes and dreams rent apart by a single Dark wizard… Lord Voldemort. No family was entirely unscathed, for like ripples in a still pool; his every action – his living presence – touched and twisted their lives. Wounds in the first generation were nursed to scar the second and third.

Their tales are collected here, sorted and deciphered, reconstructed and patched together to the best of my ability. It has been my life work, here in the Chamber of Archives, deep within the Department of Mysteries.

Minerva McGonagall, the willful woman who became Head of Hogwarts but broke her heart over and over in the fight against Riddle.

Caradoc Dearborn, last of his line and a mystery worthy of this Department,

Alphard Black, the first and last friend of Tom Riddle, who gave up his life rather than submit to Lord Voldemort.

Amelia and Augusta Bones, two sisters who lost family member after family member yet fought for decades against all forms of Darkness.

Juliet Meadows, forgotten by history even more than her daughter Dorcas.

These are their stories.

Step into the Pensieve, you who dared to enter and discover for yourself if the cycle of suffering can be broken.


	2. The circle has no beginning

_Extracts from the memories of Hogwarts students in the year 1943.___

_Permission has been granted from donators for viewers to delve beyond the superficial recreation produced by the standard Pensieve and to truly step into their shoes. Please note, not only is this an invaluable historical record that contains sensitive material, but it is extremely personal and should be treated with care. Although those who gave their memories are long passed on, we of the Chamber will not permit desecration of their spirits. Remember also that time is fluid; the juxtaposition of the past allows greater understanding of the present. For this reason I have included fragments found of the writings of the one Caradoc Dearborn in his first year at Hogwarts___

_Perhaps the reason Caradoc Dearborn always fascinated me is because when he disappeared, it was complete. He left nearly nothing behind. No descendants, no monuments, virtually no sign that he had walked this earth. His family manor was long razed to the ground, and with it, all portraits, personal belongings and clues to the character of the man. I first encountered a photograph of Dearborn when the possessions of Alastor Moody were sent to the Department, by then, however, most of the original Order of the Phoenix had passed on. Upon the death of Minerva McGonagall however, some new evidence came to the fore. ___

_Particularly interesting was the assortment of correspondences locked away in a dusty box, overlooked in the first inspection, and requiring passwords obtained from her dreamscape to open…___

_A final warning: once you go forward, you will lose all sense of self. You will have no control over events, but must simply observe and survive the emotional onslaught until the end of the memory………………_

Extracts from the correspondance of Caradoc Dearborn, 1st year

**First Year**

September 2, 1937

Dear Mother and Father,

So I've had my first day at Hogwarts, and I'm settling in happily. You will be pleased, but hardly surprised to receive confirmation that last night I was sorted into Slytherin as my father and grandfather and great grandfather etc before me. Thanks for your package – it was great, the boys have ripped into it already.

I think you should know that Minerva was not, as expected for such a gifted young witch (whom may I remind you that you both dote on and adore) sorted into Ravenclaw. She has become the first McGonagall in a century to be sorted into Gryffindor. I thought you might need some time to process that before you meet Uncle Ben.

Despite this social barrier, I have not found myself as friendless as I now admit I feared. Henry Avery, who I met at the Black's Easter Supper, and my old acquaintance Eileen Prince were among a number of kids Sorted into Slytherin whom I already knew. I begin to understand how important all the things you've always taught me about family, and history and the responsibility which comes with both, are. Slytherins appear to take this very seriously. I won't let you down. I promise

Your loving son,

Caradoc Dearborn

September 2, 1937

Dear Uncle Ben

I hate you. Seriously. Min and I spent the whole train ride constructively: practicing simple spells to prepare for the Sorting. You had, after all, told us how painful and tough it was practically since we were born. Stories about riddles, treasure hunts, Manticores…

So just _imagine_ our surprise when we found out it was a simple matter of putting a hat on. Thanks Ben! Really. I don't know how I could have managed without the last three months full of anxiety.

This place is huge, I've gotten lost ten times already, but I blame your daughter – couldn't you have passed on your sense of direction instead of your sarcasm? It's totally awesome too to be around so many other kids – for as long as I can remember, it's just been me and Min, and now we have a whole bunch of new people. I think Min finds it a bit overwhelming, to be honest, but don't worry – I'm keeping an eye out for her.

Anyway, have to run, old man – your daughter is going to hex me to next week if I don't post this now and head off to our first Transfiguration lesson. About half an hour early. Typical.

Love, 'Doc

September 15, 1937

Dear Uncle Ben

Yes, I know you're not actually my uncle, but I've called you that for so long that I forget we're not actually related.

Thanks for the quick reply to yesterdays note. Didn't know who else to ask – my parents would probably send me another copperplate piece of art done by the house elf telling me to be a good little Slytherin. Right now, I don't know what that means. When I first wrote you, I did sound happy, but I was lulled into a false sense of security. Hazing began that very day. Your advice, though well meant, would probably get me killed. I'm sure they did play mind games in Ravenclaw, but here, they play power games, and they play to win.. at any cost. First years are pawns in the battles of upperclassmen, but if I'm going to survive here, I need to learn how to play. Its play or be played and I don't like being used. Luckily, the fact my father is Minister means most people in my year respect me and most of the older kids leave me alone. I think Abraxas Malfoy's mentoring of me helped to.

Min is well…. I think. I haven't been able to talk to her much, inter-house friendships are not tolerated. She really not mention me at all? Nothing? Yeah, Chief Auror, your awesome powers of detection were all on fire there in guessing that she is angry at me – she inherited your temper I reckon– but I'm not sorry to be Sorted into Slytherin.

There's kind of a thrill, a bit of a rush, that comes when I play their games and outmaneuver them, that makes me think maybe I do belong here. My family always expected it, and I'm proud to uphold such an ancient tradition. Obviously it would be heaps easier if we could be friends in the open. It doesn't really matter to me – it's only for a few years, before we have the status to make us untouchable – but it really seems to bother her. I don't understand girls. And it's weird to be talking about your daughter to you. Please direct all your questions to her in the future.

The Hat – and I still can't believe you didn't mention it in the eleven years you've known me – told me Ravenclaw could fit me, but Slytherin would make or break me. Only reason I'm glad Min became a Gryff, is that I'm not eaten by the guilt that I chose what Slytherin could offer. I'm going to be a great wizard like you, Uncle Ben. You watch me.

Yours, Doc

P.S. Of course I'm trying out for Quidditch. Shouldn't have to ask!! Can't until next year, but will be back at Christmas to train as usual even if your stubborn daughter still isn't talking to me.

4 October 1937

Dear Minerva

Happy twelfth birthday! I hope _Quidditch through the Ages_ serves you well. I thought I shoudl get you your own since you refuse to use my copy now,

-C

1st Jan 1938

Min,

Happy New Year!

Missed you at Christmas – I swear I had no idea my family was taking me to Switzerland for the holidays. Speaking of families.. does your father know you returned my present unopened? Please thank him for the Keeper gloves he sent me.

Caradoc

March 1938

M,

If you ever want to see your cat again, meet me on the fourth floor in the hidden tunnel behind the tapestry of Circe at 2 am on Thursday morning. I'm sorry to go to such lengths, but we need to talk.

- C

P.S. Your cat likes me more than you. I thought you should know.

March 1938 Dear Mother,

I am sorry to hear Father is unwell. Yes, I am aware of the pressure he is under. No, I am not intentionally trying to sabotage his career.

It was one detention! Seriously!

And all we were doing was _talking_ – we're eleven! Min is hardly leading me astray; I had to practically blackmail her to meet me. Actually, now that I think of it, it was more extortion. I think. Muggles are confusing.

And no, I couldn't talk to her at a normal hour, because she's _Gryffindor_ and I'm a _Slytherin_ and it's _simply not done._

Your loving son,

Caradoc

March 1938

Sir,

I hope you are well. I beg your pardon for worrying Mother, but as I have assured her, it was a minor incident. There was something I needed to do, and now it's done. You needn't worry, it won't happen again.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

April 1938

Min,

You're my oldest friend. For that reason, I've tried for the last six months to reach some sort of understanding. You've made your opinion clear, and I won't bother again.

Caradoc

May 1938

Uncle Ben,

I have an essay or two to write and hand in today so I'll be brief:

You're meddling, old man.

Ben, you saw how Easter went. This isn't going to get any better, it's probably for the best we make a clean break now and get on with our new lives at school.

'Doc

Extracts from memories of 1943 (7th year)

"Everything is going to change now," Minerva said slowly, staring unseeingly past the torrential rain. She was curled up in the gold velvet window seat that remained unworn despite centuries of playing comforter to dreaming Gryffindor girls who had looked out at the rolling green hills, still black lake and often rain obscured pastoral serenity to muse.

A loud snort broke this particular girl's reverie and she twisted her long, lean body around to throw a wry look at the slightly plump, disgustingly cheerful spectacle currently sprawled on _her_ golden four poster bed.

Min lifted one delicate eyebrow.

"Ladylike, Amelia," she reprimanded smilingly.

"Min, darling, you do realize we don't graduate for – oh, that's right, months yet!," pouted the dark haired Amelia.

"And we have had seven – count 'em – seven – years to get used to that blissfully beautiful day when we take flight into the great unknown - "

"I don't want to leave either!," wailed a third girl, emerging from the adjacent bathroom dripping wet and daringly clad in pajamas. No nightgowns for Juliet Meadows, thank you! It was 1943, after all!

She shook back her tangled blonde mane, carelessly drying it with her wand until she caught the twin looks of disbelief sent her way by her dorm mates.

"What? Just because I spent the last seven years complaining about the repressive institution taking the magic out of magic doesn't mean that it's not…. you know, home. Although……"

As she continued in this vein, Min automatically tuned out her rant and then smiled inwardly at the changes the three girls had undergone since their first year. An excess of Gryffindor females in their year had necessitated the opening of a second dorm at the very top of the Gryffindor tower. The three of them had found themselves bundled together for the next seven years, which looked to be rocky, as, even at eleven, Amelia and Minerva had strong and opposing personalities. Juliet, who tradition and circumstances dictated should have been peacekeeper, was usually a million miles away, dreaming of some Utopia.

"Bless her," thought Min fondly as she watched the flicker of emotions on Jules' pointed, expressive face. The majority of Hogwarts was unaware of the existence of a Juliet Meadows. Sure, there was a pale blonde dolly who spent time with that dish Amy Bones and her pal the Head Girl, but what was her name again? She a mute or something? Sure and I've never heard her speak, even in class, y'know…..

Despite the curious and crippling shyness that kept Juliet Meadows out of the spotlight, those that were privileged to be granted admission into her inner circle were often treated to her extensive and cuttingly phrased commentary and sometimes wished the opinionated young lady would just shut up.

"Minerva, are you even listening?," interrupted Amelia, although Juliet continued to grumble softly in the back.

"I swear to_ Godric_ that I will not live out this year if both of you have your head in the clouds.."

"Sorry," apologized Min sheepishly. Just because they had been friends for years – were family, really, didn't mean that the automatic patterns their friendship followed were always perfect. She resolved to be a better friend in the time left to them and summoned up a bright smile.

"Recap – briefly, if you humanly can – what did I miss?"

Juliet drew herself up to her full height and dramatically tossed back her gleaming gold hair.  
"_I_ don't have a brilliant career awaiting me," she said tragically, stabbing one nail bitten finger accusingly at Minerva.  
"Or," she continued, the pointing finger moving to Amelia, "a glittering social life in the most aristocratic of pureblood circles."  
Juliet flounced across the room to ensconce herself in the window seat next to Minerva, who wrapped a comforting arm around her Muggleborn friend.

"I resent that," drawled Amelia, still reclining on Minerva's bed. "I'll have you know that I intend to have a brilliant career as well as a dazzling social life. The world shall know – and love – Amelia Bones." With a negligent wave of her hand, she deflected the golden window seat cushion hurtling in her direction.

"How did you do that?," demanded Minerva immediately, sharing a stunned look with the wide eyed Juliet.

"I'm fabulous, darlings. Spiffing, even," was the flippant response, which earned a this time successful cushion to the face.

"Amelia. Susan. Bones!!!!"

"Well, if we're on middle name terms," sneered Amelia halfheartedly, at last sitting up with a decided twinkle in her dark eyes. She paused for effect as Min tapped her foot on the ground dangerously.

"Orion," she drew out the word, "has been teaching me wandless magic. I don't care what my mother says about the Blacks, that boy is a treasure. He.. well..he.."

"Spit it out," said Juliet, holding up the last cushion left in the window seat threateningly.

"Well, he wants me to impress his parents when he formally introduces me as the girl he intends to court," said Amelia very quickly, blushing a deep rose.

As Juliet gaped wordlessly, Amelia met Min's eyes hesitantly. Reading a world of questions there, she added with forced levity;

"Speaking of pretty pureblood boys, weren't you supposed to meet the dashing Alexander – about ten minutes ago?"

With a muttered curse, Min slipped out of the room, leaving Juliet to do her best to interrogate and extract the finer details of the Bones-Black saga. As she flew down the stairs, she mused that relationship while her feet, well trained after seven years, strode through corridors of their own volition. Were things so serious that Black – she was forced to call him Orion to his face, but Black he remained in her head – was going to introduce Amy to his parents formally? As well announce to pureblood society their intent to wed. Yet another terrifying change.

She shoved that thought away firmly and found herself already at her destination, the Head's study. It was, in the spirit of house unity, placed at the precise centre of the castle. As parts of Hogwarts frequently shifted, so too did the study. She supposed Prewett found it just as far from the Ravenclaw Tower, but it remained an impractical system.

Realising that she was standing before the engraved double doors flanked at each side by suits of armor, she laughed at herself and placed a palm on the oak door.  
"I am Minerva Medea McGonagall," she said softly, and stepped forward as the doors swung open and the suits attempted a creaky salute.

Underneath the mountain of paperwork he was buried under, the occupant of the room jumped visibly and swore.

"Sweet Rowena, I wish those suits would ditch the fanfare," griped Alexander Prewett, giving Min a lopsided grin. He was, as Amy had noted, exceedingly attractive, as well as the typically intelligent Ravenclaw, but Min, simply relieved to be paired with a component partner, would have settled for far less. For a time she had been horribly afraid Headmaster Dippet would give the post to the slimy, womanizing toad commonly named Henry Avery.

She looked around the bright, airy room. The study was all that was given to the Heads – private dorms would have been simply improper, and it was important that they mingle with their year mates – but she had worked hard to achieve this distinction. It had taken Dumbledore to convince Dippet that she was perfectly capable of handling the dual positions of Head Girl and Quidditch Captain.

Roles that defined her, titles that made up who she was. Pulling up a chair beside Prewett, she pulled herself together and put aside her stray thoughts of graduation – and other, darker changes afoot.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

Min's days slipped into weeks, trickling through her fingers despite her best attempts to hold onto them. She would wake to a fresh week starting with the inspired combination of double Transfiguration followed by Arithmancy, and in an eye blink she was in her Friday afternoon Ancient Runes class. A yawn, and she was drilling her team rigorously thoroughly with Sunday Quidditch training…

Head Girl. Quidditch Captain. President of the Inter-Magical-Schools Association of Transfiguation Student's Society. Straight 'O' student on excellent terms with the staff as well as the students. In a few short months, she had to leave the comfort of this safe, ordered haven to fend for – and find – her self. Away from Hogwarts.

"When did you become such a dreamer, my goddess?," queried six feet two inches of male arrogance personified.

"What do you want, Dearborn?," she snapped automatically, coming down to breakfast in the Great Hall with a bump. She narrowed her green eyes at the smirking young man before her.

Caradoc Dearborn was not the most good looking boy in Hogwarts, nor the most intelligent, charismatic or even charming. This was, after all the era of Orion Black, Min McGonagall, Alex Prewett and Tom Riddle. Nonetheless, he carried himself with a certain careless grace of bearing, a cool confidence in his own powers of attraction that assured onlookers of his superiority.

"Well," he drawled slowly, seating himself uninvited at the Gryffindor table and leaning forward. "If we're going to discuss _wanting_ - "

"Be gone, foul knave," cried Amelia, swooping down to protect her best friend from harassment before eight thirty and promptly swiping her breakfast in return.  
With a wink and a shrug, Dearborn was gone, and Min resorted to battling for the return of her breakfast cake rather than allow herself space to ponder his words.

A brief struggle over the last blueberry muffin did not lessen the interest in Amelia's too sharp gaze. Min took refuge in her rapidly cooling tea, but knew from experience that Amy's silence only meant she was busy analyzing every nuance of the tete a tete she had interrupted. The breakfast table was fast emptying, and as they rose, her suspicion were confirmed when Amy purposefully tucked her arm into Minerva's, and began to steer her towards Greenhouse Ten for NEWT Herbology.

"So,"Amy said a little too casually.

"Where's Jules,?" Min asked quickly. Amy arched an eyebrow. "She doesn't do Herbology, you know full well that she'll sleep in 'til lunch time after being up all night for Astronomy…."

"Oh yeah," said Min vaguely, slightly flushed. They walked together for a time in silence, until, unable to bear the unspoken sympathy that was far too close to pity, Min spoke.

"He was just trying to irritate his house," she told Amy firmly.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Puh–leez! He doesn't need to try. Slytherin would have booted him out on his nicely shaped rear years ago if he wasn't a _Dearborn_,"

Min grimaced in agreement, only half listening as Amy tactfully changed the topic to the latest word on the compromising position the flying instructress had been caught in with the Slytherin Quidditch Captain. Normally she would have pounced on any information remotely Quidditch related and worked it into her sophisticated game plan, but in the past few weeks, she had been unusually withdrawn. Caradoc had noticed of course – they were no longer on civil speaking terms, but he still kept tabs on her, as she did him……..

Stopping that train of thought, which only led to an emotionally unhealthy place, was a task that took the majority of double Herbology, and she returned to the Great Hall with the fervent resolution to only think happy thoughts - particularly when battling angry and vicious plantlife! Tucking ravenously into the thick, steaming stew and creamy shepherds pie as it appeared on the house tables, she liberally spread butter on her crusty bread and sighed in contentment. Hogwarts knew how to make her students happy.

Across the table from her, Jules shoveled food down her throat from behind _Hogwarts, A History_, beside her, the lanky, red haired Septimus Weasely rolled his eyes in acknowledgement of shared pain as Amy began ripping her voice through octaves in a typical squabble with her sister.

"How could you?"

"Your only sister comes all the way from Hufflepuff table to lunch with you, and this is how you - "

"You stole my bread!"

"It's just a piece of bread you selfish, ridiculous - "

Ignoring them with the ease of long practice, Min surveyed the Great Hall, unable to shake off her pensive mood. She saw her school mates as if through new eyes.

There were the proud, elitist Ravenclaws, who kept to themselves and their books. While there were many kind and good hearted 'Claws, they invariably possessed a competitive streak nurtured to full potential by the atmosphere of their House. As a result, while they tolerated her in their NEWT classes, most resented her academic brilliance as a Gryffindor, particularly in Transfiguration. She supposed it would be with these sweet souls she underwent further study abroad post Hogwarts. She sincerely hoped the many universities on the Continent had the diversity and rich college experience they claimed they did.

There were the Hufflepuffs – the bullied, overlooked house of quiet achievers, who gave tirelessly to any who asked and were loyal to the bone. Hufflepuffs were the butt of virtually every joke, yet Min had always felt privately that they were the most interesting house – one did not have at be witty, courageous or cunning all the time, but could simply grow up determined to be true to their own nature. Much less pressure.. although if she'd been sorted there she would have set the Hat on fire.

The Gryffindors were a rambunctious lot, by far the loudest table as they joked, yelled and laughed at each other. After four years of successful captaincy, she had the gratitude of her house, although her personality and status as Head Girl meant this was tinged with some awe as well as intimidation. Any brave soul daring enough to request the escort of Minerva Medea McGonagall to a ball was considered heroic enough to be a Gryffindor by association if not in name, but such poor sods were usually met with a frosty glare that took several years off their lives. Nonetheless, among her close friends she was dearly loved, and after seven years the Gryffindors, despite their rowdiness, inability to adhere to curfews and sheer foolhardiness, were her family. She belonged to them, and they to her.

Most of all, her dorm mates were her sisters. She had friends among other houses and in her own whom she loved dearly, but Jules and Amy were beyond compare. The three of them had endured heartaches, struggles with parents, and all the physical changes and emotional rollercoaster of adolescence to grow into the young women they were now. The two girls had been the lifeline she had clung to when her mother had at last succumbed to a wizarding disease, they had pulled her out of the dark pit that her mother's absence had left her in, and to leave them behind now was to leave behind a part of her very self.

The fourth, much maligned house of Hogwarts caught her eye as a golden haired cad seated at that table sent a daring wave in her direction. Was Dearborn suicidal?  
Slytherin was a… troubling house. She did not believe half the rumours flying around – she was a sensible, level headed witch thank you, – but something about Tom Riddle disturbed her. He was too beautiful, too brilliant, too popular. Jules laughed and suggested she was jealous, and Amy reminded her that he was the only person to ever disarm her in a practice duel, but it was more than that. She never quite understood how, but he always got his own way. He was gracious in apparent defeat, and then events would conspire to bring about his desire without Riddle twitching a long tapered finger. She shivered involuntarily as his handsome, cold face flashed in her mind. Despite his charm, something alien lurked behind those grey eyes, and the adoration he garnered from all repulsed her.

The fate of the only student in Slytherin who didn't fall over his feet worshipping Riddle worried her.

With an effort, she pulled herself away from that precipice – Dearborn would have to fend for himself. It was too late to bridge that gap, far too much had happened. As she twirled her wand in Charms and cast enchantments with precision, she could feel him watching her, but it meant nothing. He was sprawled on the Slytherin side of the classroom in Ancient Runes, and it was not his gaze she could feel boring into her neck. She wasn't aware that his usually immaculate hair was disheveled, that his eyes were red rimmed and his face forced into his social mask of nonchalance. He didn't watch her from the other side of the Great Hall, his forehead creased at her uncharacteristic dreamy vagueness, as she floated through school, her body physically present, and her mind far away.. He didn't understand without having to be told that nothing frightened her so much as change, and that her time here was incalculable precious to her. He didn't know that she remembered, and mourned, for the innocents they had once been, but could be no more.

XXXXXXXXXXXX

When the news finally came, it struck her like a lightning bolt to the heart. She understood, finally, why she had spent the last few weeks so wrapped up in nostalgic, regretful thoughts and dreams. On some subconscious level, she had known.

**AN: This is my first story. I'm new at this, so your reviews – even if a single word – are precious to me. Please let me know what you think! It will pick up pace – each chapter is planned :)**


	3. The Dark is Rising

_Seeker of the mysteries, you must know that I am no prophet. I treasure the past so you may harvest the future. For that reason, I will dispel any lingering questions you may have about the validity of the memories stored within. The men and women of the past were acutely aware of their own mortality. They had lived most of their days choked by the stranglehold of darkness, and for this reason, youth, love and happiness were not treated lightly._

_There are spells and potions which can recall old memories. I know them all._

_Better yet, I can bring memories to life, every sight, sound and taste…as it was experienced by the memory keeper…._

**Further extracts from the correspondances of Caradoc Dearborn, written during his second and third years at Hogwarts**  
****

**2nd year**

November 1938

Dear Father,

Sir, with all due respect – have you gone mad?

I simply don't see how it could have come to this. I respectfully refuse.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

November 1938

Dear Mother,

I've seen the paper – who hasn't? Please talk to Father. He's being stubborn and irrational and I strongly suspect he's going to lose his only real friend. He and Ben have been mates for years, we live right next to each other – surely this scandal will all blow over? Does Diana McGonagall need this on top of her illness?

Your loving son,

Caradoc

November 1938

Dear Uncle Ben,

It's true you're not my blood uncle. Actually my blood uncle is a tosser, so it doesn't matter. You taught me to fly. You helped me choose my first owl. You've pretty much been there my whole life. You are family.

I hope Diana is recovering? Don't tell anyone the flowers were from me.

I heard about your fracas with Father. Made the front page of the Prophet actually. Just wanted you to know, that Father may have 'severed all ties' with you, but I am, and remain,

Your nephew,

Caradoc Dearborn

P.S Didn't make the team. Apparently I have an attitude problem. Also, sons of disgraced ex Ministers don't fit into the Quidditch food chain.

P.P.S It's not about talent, you know. Avery got Chaser purely because his father bribed Parkinson. He's got the ability of a baboon on Butterbeer.

December 1938

Dear Mother and Sir,

Received your note and instructions for the holidays. I thank you, but I plan on staying at Hogwarts for Christmas. Have a lovely time in the Caribbean.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

December 1938

Mother,

I am not sulking. I am making a stand, proving a point, having a Cause. You always go on about how I need to have a Passion outside of myself, some joie de vivre or whatever.

And I was _totally_ and _completely_ unaware Miss McGonagall was going to be stranded at Hogwarts while her parents went to Sweden – who would tell me such a thing? How did you find out, anyway? And why do you always assume that I have an ulterior motive?

Your loving son,

Caradoc

December 1938

Mother,

No, I'm sure you said Sweden. And I'm not going to the Caribbean! I refuse. Nothing you can do can possibly make me.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

December 1938

Dear Ben, Diana and family

Merry Christmas! The Caribbean is ridiculously hot, but I hope Sweden is both cool and snow white. All the best with the new treatment at St Cecilia's Clinic!

Love, Caradoc

February 1939

Dear Aunty Di

Happy Birthday! I was sorry to hear that you are still in the hospital, especially for your birthday, and hope you recover soon.

Regards,

Caradoc

April 1939

Dear Uncle Ben,

Yeah, it has been a while, I haven't had a spare second to lift quill to parchment. There's this Slytherin thing happening – I literally can't say more than that or I'll be jinxed six different ways, but its occupying every waking moment and it is INTENSE. I just have to get through it and then – then – damn this, the spell won't let me even write it.

Although funnily enough I can mention there is spell preserving my silence. How typically arrogant, that they couldn't be bothered to fix that after they went to – went to – argh………there it goes again.

This letter makes no sense whatsoever, but I promise to write coherently when I can.

Love, Caradoc

P.S How is Aunty Di?

P.P.S My mother wants me to get betrothed. Can I just say ewwwwww! That's just so, so wrong! Girls are gross!

May 1939

Dear Sir

Every time I think I have discovered all there is to Slytherin, I then realize that everything I've seen so far is merely the surface, there is layer after layer coiled behind the first façade.

You know of what I speak.. and why I can say no more…

It is underway. Very, very difficult, bur failure is not an option.

Eileen Prince is absolutely furious to be excluded, likewise Acanthe Lestrange, who has always been a model of decorum in male company, threw a grand tantrum that had Selwyn himself running to see if anyone was dead or dying. Please put your foot down if Mother continues suggesting Acanthe as a suitable bride. I think the rumours about mental instability in the Lestrange family may have some basis.

Enough about girls, I've had too many conversations about them recently. If I could tell you about my actual – about the – the – oh, you see how it is. This is absurd. Was it as frustrating for you? Was this the reason grandfather went bald young?

I remain,

Your loving son,

Caradoc

June 1939

Dear Sir,

Progression as expected. A few minor set backs, but nothing I can't handle. The broken arm was nothing, and the ribs were only fractured.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

**Third year**  
September 1939

Dear Ben,

I don't think I've ever not seen you for a whole summer. Quidditch training felt odd on my own. I ended up getting some of the servants to keep me company – until Mother found out, anyway.

Yes, I have picked my electives, despite Mother and Father heaping mountains of contradictory advice on me. I'm taking Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Care of Magical Creatures and Muggle Studies. Yes, I am aware that taking an extra subject is nothing like me, but the parentals only let me take Muggle Studies as an extra they think they convince me to drop.

Not happening. I've always wanted a legit excuse to tinker with Muggle stuff. When I get my hands on the parts to an automobile, can I stash it at your place? Please?

Yours,

Caradoc

December 1939

Dear Mother and Father,

Orion Black has invited me to spend Christmas with him and a few of the boys while their parents join you for the pureblood congress in Vienna. I assure you Grimmauld Place is well staffed and we will be more than adequately provided for

Your loving son,

Caradoc

January 1940

Dear Mother and Father,

I hope you enjoyed the Congress. Christmas was satisfactory, I thank you for your presents and will see you in the Easter break.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

May 1940

Dear Uncle Ben,

I realized that it has been months since I wrote you, longer since I saw you. It's just so easy in Hogwarts to forget that a world exists outside these walls, that life goes on, and that there's more to it than irritating Professor Selwyn and raiding the Hufflepuff common room.

No, I haven't heard from Min, but she appears well. Like me, she is cramming furiously for the final exams, unlike me, she has colour coded study notes and a seven week plan. Or so I've heard. It's not like I keep tabs on her or anything. Must dash – have a years worth of Runes translations to start.

Yours,

Caradoc

June 1940

Dear Sir,

My detention wasn't for dueling actually. I had no idea there was actually a secret passage behind the urn of the Godellian Empire at all, let alone roomy enough for a duel, but I will certainly check out – thanks! And of course I won't mention it to Mother – I'm not that daft! If she asks… then you don't remember that I got two week detentions for smoking behind Greenhouse Six. I was with Orion Black, and he only got a warning. Blatant favoritism, as usual. Must dash – think I have a History of Magic essay due today..

Your loving son,

Caradoc

_Reconstructions of the 7th year of Minerva McGonagall and Caradoc Dearborn_

Amelia Bones was not having a good day. Her late night tryst with her love around the Black Lake had been obscenely cold and ended on a frigid note. She brushed aside all thoughts of Black – hadn't she spend the greater part of the night silently fuming? The early hours of the morning thinking of a few more choice insults and working herself into a fine old fury over the slimy sea slug? Was it her fault his wretchedly handsome face smirked at her beneath her eyelids every time she attempted to close them?

The sleeping potion she had resorted to – _Godric, I hope Min never find out how far I've fallen.. Sleeping potions!!! –_had worked a little too well. Or perhaps she should have read the instructions and checked if consumption at three forty five in the morning was wise. As her eyelids fluttered open, thoughts were scrambled, tripping over themselves drunkenly, chasing after each other before they could properly register in her mind.

She had missed breakfast. And double Charms. The dorm was empty, and she could hear none of the bustling activity, the shrieks and groans that usually filled the Gryffindor tower of a morn. Her hair was a total disaster; she could feel it spread out stiffly around her head like a fuzzy halo of disordered curls. Why hadn't anyone woken her? Juliet couldn't be trusted to know what month, let alone day it was, but Min was usually a perfect Tartar when it came to punctuality. She huffed in exasperation as she wondered if there was any point in getting out of bed.

It was already past eleven – why bother? She didn't want to see her beau. Her friends obviously wouldn't notice. They hadn't had a problem with leaving her comatose in bed all morning. Classes could be caught up on.. maybe tomorrow……

Really, it would be for the best if she stayed burrowed under the warm heap of blankets today.

Her stomach chose that moment to make a drawn out, emphatic statement of protest and she groaned aloud. How had it come to this? Amelia Susan Bones, scion of one of the most ancient pureblood families, was being ruled by her stomach. Absurd! If she had been home at one of the family houses, she could have convinced the House Elves to bring her breakfast in bed. Of course, her sister would have probably stolen half of it…

Grumbling to herself, she crawled out of bed and, shivering in the chill December morning, scrambled into her uniform. She perfunctorily brushed her teeth, grimacing at her reflection in the bathroom all the while. Rather than bother with any grooming charms, she pulled a red woolen cap over her head and rummaged through the draws for her favourite lipstick. Thus attired, she dragged herself down to the Great Hall, where lunch – bliss- was being served.

"Your shirt's buttoned the wrong way," pointed out sandy haired Owen Finnigan as she collapsed at the Gryffindor table and reached for a chicken leg. She glared at him around a mouthful of warm crusty bread and was surprised to see his normally sunny features stiffen. Finnigan was not the only Gryffindor boy with a stony face and set shoulders. If she had cared to look, she would have seen a muscle twitching in Ignatius Wood's tanned cheek. Tiberius Ogden, his face carefully neutral, was, along with Septimus Weasely, exerting considerable pressure to prevent Edmund Bell from springing to his feet and whipping out his wand. Heads were turning throughout the suddenly hushed hall. She could see her sister Augusta's pale face peering over from the Hufflepuff table, could almost feel Alexander Prewett's brooding stare from Ravenclaw. At her own table, conversation had ground to a halt; even empty headed Leda Lockhart and her chums Morrigan Rosier and Phyllis Twycross had stopped gossiping to avidly watch the unfolding drama.

Amy, however, had eyes only for the source of the disturbance, and as he casually slid into the seat beside her and draped one long arm about her shoulder, she narrowed them dangerously at him. Orion Black seemed as oblivious to her stare as to that of the hundreds of stunned students who watched him pour two gobletfuls of lemonade. As he reached for a roll off her plate, she swatted his hand away and jerked her plate back. Ho only smiled lazily, the merest curve of lips. Further down the table, two fourth years swooned.

"I forgot you don't like to share your food, do you darling?"

"What are you doing?" she hissed. If she had been able to tear herself from his gaze, she would have seen little Walberga Black send her a look from the Slytherin table that took several years off her life. Orion had the temerity to look surprised, as if breaking a thousand social taboos was something he did normally. "Well, love, as you didn't come over to my table, I thought I'd - "

"Are you really going to pretend that last night never happened?," Amy demanded. As Elaine Clearwater's jaw visibly dropped, eyebrows arched and whispers chased themselves around the table, she winced at her choice of words. She was close enough to Orion's body to smell his musky aftershave and feel him trembling with suppressed laughter. Resisting the urge to kick him in the shins, she gathered her composure.

"Pretending our disagreement -" she raised her voice on the last word " - didn't happen, doesn't make it go away Black".

He stopped smirking when she used his family name, and his face snapped into the cold mask she hated so passionately. Pulling away from him, she made to get up, but he leaned over and held her fast.

On the other side of the table, Septimus Weasely cleared his voice portentously, but neither Black nor Bones paid him any attention. Amelia never failed to be entranced by the darkening of Orion's light grey eyes by emotion. She knew the almost colourless white-grey they became when he was bored in pureblood circles, the darker blue-grey they became when he was particularly happy, the almost invisible green glint they took on when he was amused. This grey, however, was so dark as to be almost black, and she was seeing it far too often lately.

"You would leave me here,?" he asked with dangerous calm. "I abandon a thousand years of Black family tradition to demonstrate my affection by sitting at the _Gryffindor _table, and you would walk away and humiliate me. Do I need to remind you that I am a Black?"

She broke free of his hold. "You seem to have forgotten that I am a Bones. We have our own family traditions and I have to talk to my sister about one of them. Enjoy your lunch."

As she stormed over to the Hufflepuff table, she felt the eyes of most of the students and some of the teachers follow her and inwardly thanked her mother for her painfully boring classes on deportment.

"What was that,?" asked Augusta eagerly, almost pulling her into a seat at the Hufflepuff table. "I don't want to talk about it," Amy said crisply, flashing a warm smile to her sister's fellow sixth years and watching Black strut back to his table out of the corner of her eye.

Augusta's face fell, but her gloom was short lived.

"Guess what?" she said breathlessly.

"What?"

"Guess!"

"I don't want to."

"Come on!" pleaded Augusta.

"Dippet wears pink satin pajamas?"

"Altair MacMillan asked Father if he could escort me to Hogsmeade. Altair MacMillan, can you believe it?"

"Does anybody in this school do anything beside flirt?" asked Amelia in desperation.

"I do," smiled Griselda Marchbanks from behind a massive yellow paged volume.

"Which is why you got thirteen 'O's and Gussy didn't," observed skinny, freckled Errol Abbott from further down the table. Augusta scowled blackly at the youth while Griselda blushed as red as her hair.

"Thirteen?," repeated Amelia awed. She received a quick nod in return.

"Merlin, I was ecstatic with nine! Why aren't you in Ravenclaw?"

"The Hat tried to put me there, but I wanted to be with my sister," confessed Griselda.

"That's lovely," smiled Amy, tweaking a curl of her own irritable sibling. An idle thought crossed her mind and she lowered her voice.

"Gussy, how did you go in your OWLS? I was in Paris with Grandmere the month they came, and I just remembered you never answered my letter asking."

"Fine," Augusta said tersely.

"She failed Charms," put in Cynthia Jorkins maliciously from Augusta's other side.

'I don't believe it," Amy said incredulously. "Even on the other side of the British Channel, I would have heard Mother's reaction"

Augusta sent Cynthia a filthy look and moved closer to her sister.

"I used a Geminio Charm on my results to produce a copy that wasn't spelled against magical interference, and then I.. altered my grade before Mother saw it."

"You're dead," said Amy with conviction.

"They'll never find out!" argued Augusta.

'That's what you said when we accidently set the hedges on fire. And the time we charmed Aunty Ellen's flying carpet to take us to London. And when we tried to put cousin Dolores up for adoption. And"

"Ok, I get it! But this is different!"

"You have to take it again," Amy said.

"No way,"

"I'll tutor you"

"Over my dead body"

"Gus, they'll find out. Mother is a borderline Seer for secrets, and anyway, when you graduate, the school sends a copy of your full academic transcript to your parents."

"Oh Helga!"

" Mmmm. Well, if you really can't cope with me, I can find you a discreet tutor and you can take the OWL again privately at the end of the year  
"You're the best," Augusta said gratefully, flinging her ams around her.

_If only everyone else thought so,_ Amy mused, sneaking a glimpse at the Slytherin table.

XXXXXX

Juliet Meadows admitted she was a dreamer. Not even her closest friends realized, though, that she was living her dream. Her two closest friends, Amy and Min , came from a different world entirely. Both were from old magical families, and had grown up with magic simply being a standard part of life. Amy was from one of the most wealthy and influential pureblood families, and while the McGonagalls were not nearly as affluent or numerous, Min's father was high up in the Auror hierarchy and well known. Both girls had known, and looked forward to the arrival of the letter which had turned upside down Jules' world.

She was the daughter of a milkman, and had expected to do no more than to marry a nice boy from her neighborhood and settle down well. Instead she was a witch, perhaps not a brilliant one, but above average. She was the dear friend of two girls whom social class dictated she should be waiting on hand and foot, and she could do anything.. go anywhere.. she was a witch. Nearly seven years later, she was still not used to the fact. She loved Hogwarts so much it frightened her. It was more than a home, it was a haven, a place that had taken her in, let her grow into the person she was meant to become.

She knew others thought that she was a wool gatherer, her head somewhere far away. In truth, she possessed a vivid imagination, but it was her thoughts which could kept her silent and withdrawn. She was not oblivious, but acutely aware of her environment. It was surprising how much one observed if one was invisible, faded into the background beside two bright rising stars.

Jules dreamed her way though double Charms and spent her free period sketching. She ambled into the Great Hall in search of her two friends around noon in time to see a slight altercation at the Slytherin table. Clarence Leroy was now sporting a brilliantly bruised eye courtesy of Orion Black, whose normally charming grin was absent. She noticed with a flicker of disdain that not one teacher appeared to reprimand the Slytherin prefect. Family name went a long way in the wizarding world.

She wondered if Amy had woken in time to see this action of her beau. Jules had considered hauling her out bed this morning; normally Min would perform the honours but she was already gone by the time Jules woke up. Amelia had looked so peaceful asleep, her normally fierce expression smoothed away and replaced by comatose serenity, that Jules had let her rest. Amelia Bones was going to need it.

An interesting fact that library at Hogwarts had divulged: magical creatures possessed many talents and abilities, some more common than others. One of the most unusual was Seeing the future. This was not a straightforward talent, fewer still had visions or possession. More common was the knack for having uncanny hunches…feelings that were all too often accurate omens.

Several hours after rising, her talent had still not told her more than that hard times were coming. Amy and Min were conspicuously absent at the Gryffindor table. Her eyes flickered around the Hall. There was Amy at the 'Puff table with her sister. Jules did not interrupt. She had a funny feeling that something significant was being set in motion by that conversation, and she had no desire to accidently upset it.

Still no Min. Caradoc Dearborn was still holding court at the Slytherin table, so she had not gone off to squabble with him at any rate. Both of them thought they were so secretive and subtle, but she was fairly sure she was not the only one aware of that old friendship. Her gaze lingered at the Slytherin table as Tom Riddle, the other self appointed prince of darkness threw back his head and laughed at some comment of Alphard Black. Around him, his toadies laughed sycophantly. She wasn't surprised that neither Crabbe nor Goyle had the wit to catch the looks of shared derision passed between Riddle and the younger Black brother, but she expected more of Avery and Lestrange. They were vile and power hungry, but not usually this dim. Black junior caught her staring and raised a mocking eyebrow, his lip curling into a sneer. She flushed involuntarily and looked away.

Min could be on Head business… she scooted over to the Ravenclaw table and squeezed herself between Roger Longbottom and Alexander Prewett.

"Boys, have either of you seen Minerva?," she asked abruptly

"Lovely to see you too Jules, and yes I am well, thanks," teased Longbottom.  
She flapped a dismissive hand at him and trained her eyes to Prewett. He shook his head, his dark hair falling into his eyes. He really was a pretty boy. She was half surprised Amy hadn't fallen for him; she had a weakness for good looking boys. Orion Black was living proof of it. In fact if she thought Amy would listen to her for a heartbeat, she would have advised her to transfer her affections from Black to Prewett before she was too emotionally involved. It was probably too late for that, but she made a mental note to ask Min about it. Min was rubbish at this love stuff, but still better than her. But first, she had to find the elusive Minerva.

"I actually haven't seen her since yesterday," said Prewett. "Is she ill? She hasn't seemed herself lately"

_Hmm, maybe I can convince Minerva that Prewett is ten times more suitable than Dearborn and won't break her heart…_

At that moment Minerva walked into the Great Hall and all thoughts of romance departed. Alarm bells went off in Juliet's head.

Minerva looked terrible. Her usually pristine uniform was crumpled under a snow spotted cloak. The tight bun she usually twisted her long black locks into was coming undone, wind snarled locks were falling into red rimmed green eyes. Her mouth was set into a thin line. Goosebumps rippled through Juliet's skin. She didn't need premonitions to know that anything that reduced Hogwarts' golden girl to such a state was nothing short of an apocalypse.

Without a word, Juliet got up, crossing the Hall to take Min's arm and steer her away from the gossiping student body. Amelia was right beside her, juggling napkins full of chicken stuffed rolls. Juliet half led, half carried Min into the small antechamber adjoining the Great Hall. Min just stood there, apparently dazed, as Amelia fussed over her.

"Are you hurt? Should we take you to the hospital wing? Have you been cursed? If you've been cursed, just blink once for me, sweetie. Oh look, Jules, she blinked! How could anyone possibly be quick enough to - "

"They couldn't," Juliet said impatiently. 'The only one good enough at dueling is Riddle, and he was sitting with Alphard Black at the Slytherin table for the last hour"

Juliet took another peek at the glazed look in Min's eyes and promptly pushed her into the only chair in the small room. Kneeling beside her, she tried to bring her friend back from wherever she had gone.

"What happened, Minerva?" she asked urgently, waving her hand in front of Min's face.

"Nothing," she finally muttered.

Amy made an incredulous noise.

"Nothing? Nothing? Let me explain to you missy, that- "

"Are you alright?" asked a new voice. Small, red haired Grishelda Marchbanks poked her head around the door, closely followed by the rather taller Augusta.

"Fine," Min said quietly.

"Go away 'Gussy," Amy ordered. Augusta looked about to argue, but Grishelda sent her a significant look and dragged her away. They were immediately replaced, however, by the lanky Septimus Weasely and what appeared to be half the Gryffindor Quidditch team. Seeker Sophia McKinnon pushed Beaters Ignatius Wood and Lionel Greengrass out of the way to squeeze into the tiny chamber.

"All right, Captain,?" she asked worriedly, a frown creasing her brow.

Min pasted on a determined smile that fooled no one"

"It's nothing," she insisted feebly. Sophia looked at her disbelievingly for a long moment before Amelia snapped.

"She said she's fine, she's fine, so OUT you all go," she commanded, flapping her hands at them and pushing them out the door. As she moved to slam it shut however, a lean brown hand wrapped around hers and held it still. With catlike grace, Alex Prewett slipped through the door. Closing it behind him, he leaned against it, breathing shallowly.

Amelia eyed him with suspicion. His usually pale, delicately molded face was grey tinged; his dark eyes held the same blank horror as Min's.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Amelia shrieked in exasperation, voicing Jules' thought.

Though her red eyes remained dry, possibly wrung out of all tears, Min let out a choked half sob that chilled Juliet to the core. She placed a comforting hand on Min's shoulder and turned to look Prewett in the eye.

"Tell us what's wrong. I don't care if it's classified Head's business, I will hex it out of you if I have to!"

Prewett laughed, a low bitter sound unlike his usual mellow chuckle.

"No need. You'll know soon enough. Everyone will. It's war. The war the Ministry swore would never happen. Oh they laughed, and said only Muggles were this backward, but- "

"Alex!" Amy cut in. "Who in Merlin's name are we at war with? Why? How?"

Prewett shook his head in disbelief.

"Your father is the Head of International Magical Relations, you want to be on the Wizengamot and you have no idea - "

"Stop it, Prewett," Juliet interrupted. She knew, more than any, how much he would regret those words later.

"Just answer the question"

"Eastern Europe". The answer came from Mon, but even those three who heard her speak, the closest friends of Minerva McGonagall, were unaware of the real reason for the catch in her voice, the real sadness in her eyes.

_ Extract from the dreamscape of Minerva Medea McGonagall_

_NB: I suspect that dreamscapes, nearly mythical in my time, are long forgotten in yours, Seeker. Few possess both the raw power and fine skill to weave such workings. Minerva was one such. Access to her dreamscape is the reason we are able to enter her memories with such clarity and emotion. A dreamscape, if the lore has failed you, is a construction of the mind by the unconscious mind during sleep. Anything can happen in this place; long buried fears, hopes and desires emerge. We will tiptoe lightly in her world, looking only for the secret she was unable to articulate in the waking world. For to say it aloud was to make it real…_

Colours, swirling endlessly. Shapes, blurring into each other, continually changing.

War, Prewett said. War, the letter wrote. Hundreds of people are dying in Europe.

Muggles are being kept like animals in farms as menial labour, and the only thing I care about is Ben.

Father.

He's all I have now. I can't lose him. I can't. He has to make it out of Germany alive.

I would know if he was gone.. wouldn't I?

Shouldn't you feel something when your last family member passes away? When you become an orphan?

Orphan. What an ugly word. It isn't who I am.

This isn't fair. I've already lost Mother, how can I lose another parent? Shouldn't there be some sort of law against this?

I haven't seen him in so long. Normally he writes, Floos, finds some way to contact me, but this time, he told me nothing. What he was doing, how long it would take.

He left me behind. In the middle of my summer. If not for Amy and Jules I would have gone mad. The Bones house is so different from mine – so bright, happy, cheerful. And LOUD….

Cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents, always dropping in, some sort of party or gathering every night.. always laughter, always music. Much as I adore Amy and her parents, this summer I felt more out of place than Jules ever did…

If he dies.. what will I do?

Can I go back to that empty house to live alone?

**AN : Thankyou all for your beautiful reviews, you inspired me to get this chapter up! ****  
****I promise it won't stay this morbid.. its just a dark time and necessarily includes some dark chapters. What I'm interested in is the people :)******

**UPDATE : as you can see, the chapters are being**** rewritten****. Chapter 4 was Caradoc's complete letters, but it was rejected because chapters are not allowed to be pure letter. Let me know what you think - is this too clumsy? Are the chapters too long now?******

**Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter universe. Not a squillionaire I fear. The chapter title is a reference to H.G Well's "War of the Worlds"**


	4. Night was descending

**An AN to NB (!!!!!) Due to Site Reguations, Caradoc's letters have been broken up into separate chapters instead of forming their own. That means you need to go back and read chapter 2 and 3 again or you will be totally lost. Thankyou for your patience! Love to you all!**

_**While not a prolific writer, Dearborn wrote well and vividly. Even more compelling however, are the dramatic changes one can map out by studying his letters over the years. Clearly his relationship, not only to Minerva, but his parents, was tempestuous. His fiery nature inspired those around him, but may have contributed to his downfall also…**_

September 1940

Dear Dad,

Well, I'm back at Hogwarts, and ready for summer already. There are however, certain advantages to being an upperclassman, which I am beginning to appreciate. I was, of course, admitted at last to the Slytherin Brotherhood, and was pleasantly surprised at the level of luxury bequeathed to us by our predecessors. You know I can't commit anything more than that to paper, I'll tell you the real stuff at Christmas, yeh?

Thanks again for the terrific summer. I don't think we've ever really talked before. Hope the healers have managed to find a cure for your cursed leg by now. I'm sure you'll be up and about in no time, and the Wizengamot will be begging for you to come back to them!

Your loving son,

Caradoc

December 1940

Mother dear,

Are you keeping tabs on me?

I admit that I have escorted the lovely Selena Nott to Hogsmeade once or thrice, Sylvia Boot to a one Quidditch match and the admittedly exotic Indira Patil to another, but it is Persephone Prewett – possibly the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts – who accompanies me to the Yule Ball.

Your sources are prone to exaggeration, Mother. My attentions have not been so pronounced as to warrant talk of betrothal. If I may be so forward, I would like to repeat – again – that I will oversee such negotiations myself. I am aware of my obligations as the last Dearborn heir.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

February 1941

Father,

I was beginning to wonder if Patroclus had been waylaid – I sent him to you weeks ago. Her name is Sophia McKinnon, and she's definitely something. Plus, she's a Gryffindor, so I had to actually make an effort this time. I'll let you know about Easter

Your loving son,

Caradoc

May 1941

Dad,

Yes..it was about a girl.. again. Sorry you had to come into the school, but I since you did… you really should have seen the other fellow!

Your loving son,

Caradoc

May 1941

Dearest Mother,

My eye is fine, _thanks for asking._ Isn't that part of the maternal instinct package? I definitely don't remember anything about not letting the school nurse use magic on your son when he 'lowers himself to muggle dueling over some chit' though.

See, I do listen when you lecture.

I'm sorry. That was rude. May I reiterate that I did have a good reason for it? You raised me to be a gentleman, and my sense of chivalry demanded I defend a lady's honour.

So there.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

P. S. I'm serious mother. I couldn't let him talk about her that way. CD

May 1941

Dad,

It wasn't Persephone Prewett, Acantha Lestrange, Sophia McKinnon, Indira Patil, Sylvia Boot or Selena Nott.

So please, for the love of Salazar, stop bragging to their fathers. The lady's name shall remain unmentioned.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

June 1941

Dad,

Not telling. Seriously.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

June 1941

Dad, and Mother, since I know you will read this

I _don't_ want to discuss it

Your loving son,

Caradoc

_Christmas is an ancient tradition that has been revered as a time for family for thousands of years. As the year 1943 drew to a close, some families were reunited, others torn further apart. As the world plunged further into darkness, still others clung to each other with desperation, as if by gripping tightly enough to their flesh and blood they could shelter them from the oncoming storm through sheer force of will and ignore the fragility of the future. _

_Those in other Departments who specialize in the inner workings of the human mind tell me that it is memories linked to strong emotion that one remembers most clearly. Perhaps for this reason there was such an abundance of material to be harvested from the memories of the Christmas of 1943 – the first of many Christmas's to be darkened by a Wizarding War._

**Verse One: Christmas Eve with the Meadows**

Juliet hummed to herself, slightly ahead of the beat blaring from the wireless. Christmas jingles had filled the air for the last few days; she smiled at the festive harmony around her and tried to make it reach her eyes. Her father was still at the pub, she had barely seen him since returning home, but she could hear her mother bustling about the kitchen, hovering over the cook's shoulder nervously. Juliet herself was attempting to decorate the sprawling, scraggly Christmas tree that took up a large part of their parlour. She was aided by four of her siblings, though the youngest, Ophelia, contented herself with sucking her thumb furiously as she gazed, half curious, half fearful, at this tall blonde 'lady' so irreconcilable with the scruffy hoodlum of the past.

With a pang, Juliet realized how seldom she had been home in the past few years. Most of the year was spent at Hogwarts, most holidays alternated between Min and Amy. Was it any wonder she now felt a stranger?

An automobile screeched to a halt outside their cottage, with a raucous shriek, another blonde tumbled through the door. Portia Meadows – the first victim of Mrs. Jane Meadows' fondness for the Bard – threw herself onto a settee and surveyed her younger siblings with disdain. The beauty of the family, and the eldest now that William had immigrated to Australia, she was also their pride. The large diamond ring she sported was more than any mere milkman's daughter had a right to expect. But then, Portia was no mere anything. Her eyes, the same almond shape of Juliet's, were not a washed out blue but a deep sea green which stopped men in their tracks. Her locks had a burnished sheen absent in her straw haired siblings, her figure well formed and shown to advantage in her tailored outfit.

Juliet wondered where, exactly, the money was coming from to pay for her sisters wardrobe. The only way she could attend Hogwarts was because of the Albus Dumbledore fund for financially disadvantaged Muggleborn children, and even then, most of her things were second hand. Simply feeding and clothing his many children took up a substantial portion of Mr. Meadow's paycheck, and his time at the pub further depleted it. The glossy presents heaped under the tree were only for the children under ten, and even then, Juliet suspected they were basic necessities or bought on credit, requiring her parents to scrimp and save for the next few months. How would they pay for Portia's wedding? Was Portia sweet talking her fiancée into that, too?

Her sister caught her quizzical glance and straightened, doning a sunny smile. After seventeen years, Juliet still wasn't sure if it was genuine.

"Do you have a beau at that school of yours, sweety,?" drawled Portia, stroking her ring unconsciously.

Juliet blushed slightly as even Helena stopped squabbling with Imogen to peer at her inquisitively.

"I'm at Hogwarts," she stressed the name, knowing it irritated her conservative sister "to get an education, not find a husband'

"What good is an education if you can't get a guy though,?" fifteen year old Desdemona asked blankly.

Juliet spluttered incoherently, unable even to begin. Before she could order her thoughts, her mother bustled into the crowded room.

"Oh girls, you've done the tree beautifully," she beamed. "Now, hurry upstairs and change for dinner- off you go then! Miranda, wash off that lipstick before your father gets home! Des darling, please wear a dress that is a decent length this time…."

Juliet could still hear her from the small room she shared with Portia and Desdemona. Silently changing into a simple white shift dress, she escaped the room before the walls closed in on her and trapped her with the sisters still preening before the mirror.

There was nowhere to go.

The country town they lived in was tiny, anywhere she wandered there would be too many questions about 'that funny school'.

'Why didn't Portia get a scholarship then? Sure and she's got the twice the brains of that Juliet, and the elder, too, innit?"

Everywhere she went, she was 'Portia's sister', the trademark Meadows nose giving her away. There was no park, the village green was busy, and she missed the great rolling hills around Hogwarts with a passion.

The thin walls of the overcrowded house struggled to hold the entire Meadows family. Amy and Min – how many of her thought began that way? Amy and Min had struggled to get used to sharing a dorm, but Juliet, after the first few weeks of homesickness, had reveled in the dizzying luxury of having her own bed. She wondered for the first time if Portia had felt the same. Had that been a catalyst for her change? What had happened to the tender big sister who had whispered stories to distract her from her parents' fights, who had sung her to sleep and shown her that there was no monster under the bed? How had the sophisticated young flapper with a bob, who smoked and went to dances, who was engaged and paraded it – replaced her?

Perhaps returning here had been a mistake. When the seriousness of the war had dawned on her, when she understood Grindelwald'd purpose – why she, Juliet was so suddenly the recipient of furtive stares and the subject of whispered conversation, she had been furious. Her blazing anger was fuelled not by pride, but fear.

Mudblood.

She had rejected the safety of a Christmas at the pureblood, respectable Bones household, left Min on her own at Hogwarts to recklessly flaunt her blood status.

And she had found, instead, that she no longer belonged here. Her family did not know her, and though they might love her, they felt the distance between her and them as keenly as she could.

She was caught between worlds, one that didn't want her, and one she couldn't want.

This holiday she had had it forced upon her how much she relied on magic. She was seventeen, a meaningless number in the Muggleworld – not the sweet fresh youth of sixteen, or the responsible adulthood of eighteen – but a number that meant everything in her world. She was used to using magic to dry her hair, close doors, summon her matching socks and the slow serenity of the Muggle life no longer satisfied her.

Yet she had come, and despite her boredom and sense of alienation, she was not sorry. A clean break, they say, is best. A fresh slate and all. However much she loved her family, she understood that this place was no longer home. Even more significantly, she Knew that this would be the last time she ever returned there. She was wishing she had been born with a happier gift than a vague foresight, the ability to fly perhaps, or maybe even some singing talent when a silver gossamer form uncurled into existence before her, taking the shape of a magnificent, heavily striped tiger.

She froze. She was not taking NEWT level Defense Against the Dark Arts herself, but Min and Amy used their Patroni so much it was impossible not to recognize a Patronus when she saw one. Its creator, however, was a mystery. Amelia produced a graceful, achingly beautiful swan which glided and spread out its wings. Min had been a trifle smug after her own Patronus was revealed to be a 'lioness'. Juliet privately thought it was more like an overgrown tabby, but no one had dared point this out.

The tiger padded silently and disdainfully towards her. The voice that issued from it electrified her to the core,

"Come at once," he ordered. "Minerva needs you"

She nodded blindly, not even considering the possibility of a trap and immediately went for her coat. It was hanging in the cloakroom, and on her way to it, she passed her family congregated around the dinner table, already started without her. She paused for a moment and watched them laughing, jostling, stuffing their faces with a rare good feed. A single person noticed as she crept past, irrevocably choosing between the forks in her road, and a tear slipped down one weathered cheek. Like magic, Seeing passes down the generations. Juliet Meadows was not the only almost Seer in her family.


	5. Christmas Carols

_A great Muggle bard once wrote: the course of true love did never run smooth. Certainly for our subjects: Minerva, Amelia and Juliet, and their various loves, there was not only hardship and strife, but tragedy, misunderstandings, and sheer pigheadedness to contend with._

**Extracts from the correspondences of Caradoc Dearborn in his Fifth Year**

September 1941

Minerva,

Heard down the grapevine that you made prefect.

Congratulations. How about a drink – Butterbeer, naturally – to celebrate? Isn't it time we put aside our childish nonsense and you stop pretending you're not in love with me? Don't feel embarrassed – most of the girls in our year are, or have been anway.

I'll meet you at 10 in the Great Hall to escort you to Hogsmeade.

-C

September 1941

Father

I don't think it worked

Your loving son,

Caradoc

September 1941

Min,

I meant it as friends, of course. There was no need to overreact. I don't fancy you, we're practically siblings.

Impressed as I am by your vocabulary, my beautiful hair is NEVER going to be the same. I don't think it will ever forgive you, but you should really come over and try to make nice to it anyway.

So, next Hogsmeade?

-C

October 1941

Dear Min,

Happy Birthday! You may have destroyed all the other flowers I sent you, but if you are reading this in your dorm, which I bloody hope Patroclus went to this time, please don't. Rip my flowers, I mean. Don't stop reading. You are my oldest friend. These yellow roses are from one childhood friend to another on her birthday. Please accept them, and my birthday wishes with the McGongall graciousness I know your grandmother drilled into you.

Yours, Caradoc

November 1941

Father,

This girl is not like the pureblood princesses I've chased in the past. Otherwise I wouldn't still be angling for a smile two months later!

Yes, of course she's from a good family. I think I need a new approach though, the whole confident thing isn't working.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

P.S Has Mother recovered from her vapours yet, or should I just not bother coming home for Christmas? I don't know why she expected I get Prefect. No one else – myself included – did.

December 1941

Min,

Stop being such a stubborn, headstrong idiot. We were good friends once. You were my best friend. After four years, we are finally in a position to publically acknowledge each other, and the only thing stopping us is your stupid Gryffindor pride.

Come to the Yule Ball with me. That's my last offer

-C

1 January 1942

M-

Well, I suppose there is a reason they call you Frosty the Snow Bitch

C

1 January 1942

Min

I am sorry. So so so so sorry. I tried to get the owl back the minute I posted it, but I couldn't… and that's why I write this from the Hospital Wing. If I could walk I would come find you in person because I know you probably won't read this.

If you are reading this.. don't let one stupid moment destroy us. I didn't mean it.

A VERY sorry Caradoc

1 January 1942

Min

I'm sorry

Love, Caradoc

2 January 1942

Min

Sorry. Really.

Love, Caradoc

3 January 1942

Min

I'm sorry

Love, Caradoc

4 January 1942

Min

I'm hoping you will actually open this one. I am sorry.

Love, Caradoc

5 January 1942

Min,

Please. I know its no excuse, but seeing you with Avery at that party – Avery, of all people…on NYE.. what were you thinking?

Look, I'm sorry, but we can't work this out until you stop avoiding me

C

8 January 1942

Min,

How much longer do you expect me to do this? I'm sorry!

Caradoc

12 January 1942

Minerva,

What I said was cruel, out of line and untrue. But I'm done groveling. I apologized, you won't accept it.

All this time, I've been trying to reach the best friend I used to have. The bright, happy creature who laughed and didn't nurse grievances. Who recognized Henry Avery for the scum that he is, and didn't hang on his slimy arm. Clearly, she doesn't exist anymore.

I am a Dearborn. I will not be toyed with.

We're done here.

5th March 1942

Dearest Mother,

Thankyou for all the pamphlets… and scrolls… and books….

Funny how they all happen to be on Healing. I know you have your heart set on me following Grandfather's footsteps, but it's not for me. Professor Selwyn agrees – he says I don't have the right 'temperament'. Other than that, careers advice was brilliant. Apparently you don't need that many NEWTS to be a curse breaker. Isn't that rad?

Your loving son,

Caradoc

7th March 1942

Mother!

Please stay where you are! The last thing I need is for my _mother_ to come storming into the school to duel my Head of House, who doesn't like me anyway.

I don't_ want_ to be a Healer, even if I had the grades or ability. And Father can stop pulling strings in the Ministry – I'm not accepting any of those internships, since I'm not taking a position in the Ministry.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

16th March 1942

Dear Mother,

I can't imagine why my Head of House doesn't like me. I'm charming, Ask anyone.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

26th March 1942

Dear Mother,

I thought that the only part of your message I could reply to civilly. Thankyou, by the way, for sending the Howler to my common room rather than the Great Hall. You really must have been the ideal Slytherin.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

**A Christmas Carol Verse II**

Amelia Bones had had a glass of champagne. Or ten. She wasn't drunk though. Not herrrrr! Never. She did however, look around furtively around the ballroom to see if any of her relatives would leap to erroneous conclusion that she was plastered. The movement made her disturbingly dizzy, so to remedy the situation with subtlety and finesse, she plonked herself on the ballroom floor, designer dress robes and all, and relieved her tortured feet of their high heeled captors.

" You are so drunk," Augusta observed, elegantly folding herself next to her.

"Am NOT!" Amy said, a little more loudly than she intended

"Are too"

"Am not"

"Are too"

"Why are there two of you? One is annoying enough!"

"Dear me," chided a third Bones. Tall, slender Edgar subjected his hapless cousins to the stare that was soon to terrify Muggle Studies students from third to seventh year. Shaking his head in mock disgust, he signaled two of his burlier cousins to remove the maidens of the Bones family from the floor before the matriarch of their clan caught sight of them. The fact said matriarch was their mother only increased the amount of trouble they would be in.

"Gerroff me!" Amy argued, vainly trying to push Nathanial Bones away. He half carried, half dragged her to one of the balconies to sober up out of sight. Augusta scrambled to feet and tucked her arm into that of her favourite cousin, Theodore. He tutted loudly, brown eyes sparkling mischievously.

"And to think, such behaviour from the flowers of finest family in Britain," he scolded.

"Sod off" she grumbled. "Everyone here is related to me, it doesn't matter!"

"Give her a break," the usually starched and straight-laced Edgar agreed. When both Theo and Augusta looked at him in shock, he shrugged.

"It's Christmas," he said simply.

The great ancestral ballroom of the Bones manor house was festively decked out in wreaths and garlands, with levitated baubles and miniature Christmas trees floating mid air. Fairies were flying in formations, spelling glittering messages like "Noel" and "Merry Chrsitmssa all to"

"Despite twelve generations of living in our grounds, the fairies still can't spell," Augusta noted wryly and she strolled around the room flanked by Theo and Edgar. Despite the size of the ballroom, it was packed with a mob, every one of whom was a blood relative. To a degree. In one corner, the elders were sitting down, taking a quick snooze or swapping tales of the good old days, before the degeneration of society. In another, the mothers were gossiping away, comparing the stellar achievements of their respective darlings. Loud groups of younger Bones' had commandeered the big band and were striking up an impromptu dance in the middle of the room. With a last hug for Augusta, Theo left to join them.

The ballroom opened out into a wide terrace; one the closer end, there was a motley assortment of Aurors, Ministry officials and Wizengamot members gathered around green and red fires, holding subdued conversations. In contrast, the other end of the room opened out to a series of balconies, in the dark corner of which the teenage generation lurked, illicitly smoking and flirting with fourth cousins.

It was in one such alcove Edgar and Augusta found Amy being violently ill over the balcony edge. Edgar frowned as Augusta pulled her sister back and removed her mess with a flick of her wand.

"You're underage," he said automatically, summoning a goblet of water for her Amy with his own wand. "And I thought Nathaniel was taking care of you!" he directed at the pale Amelia.

"He saw some bird who gave him the cold shoulder and he couldn't resist the challenge," croaked Amy, resting her head against the cool stone of the balcony edge.

"Typical," commented Edgar.

Yet another cousin, the dashingly scruffy Will Bones poked his head into their alcove and grinned wickedly at the sight of his normally immaculate cousin semi comatose.

"If you think you feel bad now, just wait 'til tomorrow," he informed her with relish.

Amelia made a vulgar hand movement without lifting her head from the balcony rail and Edgar rolled his eyes.

"The present opening will start soon, and we can't let Aunty Eleanor see you like this." Taking out his thick oak wand, he grudgingly muttered a complex sounding incantation. Almost instantly, Amelia began to feel better, her vision clicking into focus and the doppelgangers of her family receding.

"My head still hurts," she complained.

"Yeah, well, no spell is perfect," shrugged Edgar.

"You have got to teach me that, man," begged Will, his blue eyes as wide as saucers.

"No!"

"Come on! We're family man!"

"Do you realize how many cousins we have?"

"So we mean nothing to you?"

"You would abuse it shamelessly and end up in St Mungo's"

"Have some faith, man!"

Amy stopped listening to their bickering. The glare from the ballroom was so great that, even in this darkened alcove, the others had not yet noticed the peculiar phenomena that had caught her attention.

Uncoiling into existence was a Patronus she had seen only once before, and had never forgotten. The magnificent Bengal tiger stalked towards her, stopping short of her outstretched hand.

"Come at once," a familiar voice demanded. "Minerva needs you"

She turned to her gob smacked cousins and sister with desperation in her eyes.

"Cover for me?"

**A Christmas Carol Verse III : Christmas with the Dearborns**

Perhaps for Muggles, Christmas was about family. For purebloods, it was the most important event of the year. It was the best excuse to throw extravagant parties and play power games. After seventeen years, Caradoc Dearborn was tired of it.

He would have walked out outright, taken refuge in his room, the library, the woods, the broom sheds even, but he had made a promise to his mother. He had regretted it before the words were out of his mouth, but he was now forced to make at least an obligatory appearance. It was at his manor house, after all.

He wondered what threats had been issued to ensure Orion Black's attendance at the Dearborn Christmas special. He was, as usual the centre of attention in the group of young purebloods gathered in the foyer, dressed to impress, but his girlfriend would not be pleased to learn he was here instead of at the rival Bones extravaganza, especially so soon after their last reconciliation. Anyone worth knowing was either here or there, but Black usually waited a little longer before going rogue knight on his increasingly irritable maiden. Caradoc made a mental note to check in with Avery on what odds he was offering on Black and Bones making it to the alter. As Black grinned appreciatively at the pretty serving girl offering him a flute of wine, he changed his mind. Odds to end of April, maybe.

There were a thousand other things he could be doing other than assessing Black's love life, but most involved him escaping the packed staterooms. His stomach rumbled and he took out his timepiece for the third time in as many minutes. Supper seemed centuries away – particularly as Druella Rosier was bearing down on him. He began to weave his way through clustered groups of people in a desperate bid for freedom, but before he had taken ten steps, she was beside him, before he finished his barely civil bow, her smooth bare arm was entwined with his.

She was stunning, he admitted privately, although far too aware of it. No woman alive could help it, when a glance into a mirror revealed such delicate features, framed by the lustrous red locks, in stark contrast to the bobs sported by her contemporaries. The only physical flaw he could find was that her sultry, kohl rimmed eyes were brown, not green. Druella's flawless ivory skin was shown to advantage by her almost backless black gown, he found his fingers trailing across it of their own accord before he became aware of it and snatched them back. She threw him a coquettish look and possessively stroked his arm, glaring at any other pureblood woman who dared to look his way.

The violins began to tune their instruments and she wrapped herself around him immediately. He thought he heard a sigh from the direction of the younger pureblood ladies, who were covertly watching Druella with mixed levels of envy and contempt, but Druella could be very distracting and he turned back to her. The rational part of his brain screamed at him to extract himself from her embrace by any means possible, but she was pressed up against him in extremely thin silk and the hormonal teenager in him was demanding otherwise. His mother sent him a warning glance in counterpoint to his father's amusement and he cleared his throat.

"I suppose you want to dance," he said ungraciously.

"Thank you," she purred.

'"Interesting how you suddenly want to get back together now my father is in the Ministry again," he noted blandly. She laughed a tinkle of crystal chimes/

"I've always loved you darling, but you were never funny," she cooed, locking her bare white arms around his neck like a noose and using them to steer him towards the most prominently lit part of the dance floor. If he looked down, he could probably get a good view of her navel. Not that he hadn't seen it before, but despite her allure, she sickened him as well as attracted him now. She was jaw droppingly beautiful, intelligent and with both the requisite social graces and impeccable lineage. She was the embodiment of his world, from the too sweet perfume interfering with his breathing, the ancient goblin made jewellery that pressed, icy cold, from her neck to his, and the calculation he knew was in her eyes as she whispered into his ear that there was a price to pay for his past mistakes.

He savagely wished that he had never got involved with her, and that their parents were not now hammering out betrothal details.

He had been a fool to think she was all she appeared, all the other one was not.

When she began covertly kissing his neck, he jerked back, vindictively hoping his parents were still watching. He would be damned if he went through with this.

They needed him to say the words before they could do anything; they needed him to agree for it to be legal and magically binding.

Leaving her on the dance floor – what a cliché, Dearborn – he made for the exit, ignoring the smirks and suggestive winks thrown his way by Black and Avery, the disapproval emanating from the older guests and the almost palpable fury of his parents.

They would look for him first in his room, so he went to the bell tower. At the end of December, no one in their right mind would venture out in the bitter cold to the top of such a rickety building. The Dearborn manor, despite constant renovations, still has many old and broken down buildings harking back to the early days of the family's wealth. The newer wings were redecorated and refurnished, but there remained dusty, spider webbed adjacent buildings that he liked to ramble through when in a dark mood. He had become quite familiar with them of late. He felt ridiculous, hiding in his own home. He was seventeen, for Merlin's sake! Yet still he hesitated to take the final step.

The cold darkness was a relief from the controlled, stilted conversation that had been passed around the staterooms for the last few hours with the practiced veneer of sophistication and civility. He had suffered for the last few hours, tolerating pseudo intellectualism, loaded comments and curious glances, and after years of stifling his irritation, the façade he used in polite society had finally cracked.

A student belonging to any house but Slytherin might wonder how pureblood children lived their double life; perfect porcelain dolls on display at these functions, aware of their role as family assets, and yet maintain a persona as normal students fitting in at Hogwarts.

The simple answer: they didn't.

Slytherin was nearly exclusively pureblood, and purebloods were brought up on a diet of galleons and power struggles. After a time, playing the game became second nature; tracking the constantly shifting power balance, carefully choosing each word for maximum impact, pouncing on any weakness and verbally decimating the possessor – to survive, they all became very good at it.

He had read Muggle literature as a child, and vaguely gathered that this wasn't normal; children were supposed to be something other than marionettes controlled by their family patriarch.

But that was Muggles for you.

It had not always been like this.

When his parents were younger, poorer and less influential, he was sure there had not been this constant worry about society. But those days were gone, as were the days he could stroll down to the neighbouring estate and run off with Minerva to play pirates in the woods.

Without realizing it, he had turned his head to the direction of the McGonagall house. From the top of the bell tower, he could just make out the distant outline of the familiar house, blazing with light, silhouetted against the darkness like an irresistible beacon. He had no idea how long he stood in the cold, staring out into the distance, before he was found.

CRACK!

His personal house elf, Jemmy, popped into being, bulging blue eyes heartbreakingly fearful.

"Please sir," he begged. "Misses says you is to rejoin the party, at once Master Dearborn, at once!"

"She does, does she m'boy?"

"She is wishing to make the announcement," Jemmy squeaked. Caradoc tore his eyes from the McGonagall house to stare at Jemmy for a long minute. The house elf fidgeted uncomfortably; aware the dangerous curve of his masters smile boded ill.

"Tell my mother I will be along.. presently," Dearborn instructed him clearly. He held up a hand as the house elf dared a protest, and waited until he was gone before again fixing his eyes on the distant house and Disapparating.

He had never Apparated here before; the last time he had set foot in this soil he had been under twelve, but the place remained so familiar to him he found himself exactly where he intended: on the doorstep of a large, white stone house with faded blue shutters and a dark red roof. He shivered in the bitter cold; it was incredibly stupid not to take a cloak, and lifted the brass knocker in the shape of a raven before he could change his mind. He could hear no noise inside, but there were lights shining in every window. The quiet soothed his exacerbated nerves after the party, in the eternity before the door swung open, he tried to pull himself together.

When finally the door was opened, his chest tightened uncomfortably and his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth. Min McGonagall's plain, beautiful, achingly familiar face lit for a single, glorious moment above her tartan dressing gown and thick black braid. Then she registered his presence, and the hope illuminating her eyes faded, and her mouth fell into a thin, hard line.


	6. Swan Song

**Sixth year**

September 1942

Dear Mother,

I have made up my mind, and I am sticking to it. I will not back down, and Father not speaking to me is something I grew accustomed to over the holidays. School is as usual.

Your loving son,

Caradoc

December 1942

My dear Mother,

If I had known he didn't want you in contact with me, I would have never answered your first letter. Until he cools down, he won't listen to reason, he's stubborn as pig and prouder than a Gryffindor. It's not worth the risk. I am remaining at Hogwarts for Christmas to prove my point, but I promise to come home for summer.

Oh, and for the love of Salazar, please stop trying to arrange my betrothal!

Your loving son,

Caradoc

January 1943

Dear Ben,

It has been too long. I can't forgive myself for losing contact. I am absolutely devastated by your news. If there's anything I can do – anything at all - I can't imagine what you are going through. May I be so bold as to ask when the funeral is? No force on the earth will keep me away.

Yours truly,

Caradoc

January 1943

Dear Ben,

No, of course. I'm not offended. I understand completely. I'm sure Diana would have wanted just the family as well. I'm so sorry we fell out of contact – for my father – and I won't repeat his mistakes. On Minerva -you have my word of honour.

Yours, with deepest sympathy,

Caradoc

_Certain events in our lives may seem of ordinary import at the time, but when we look back, we see them as hallmarks of great changes. Decisions made on one day set in motion chains of events, the repercussion of which cannot be seen, but exist as ripples through the waters of time. The Christmas of 1943 marked the end of an era. In the year that was to come, Grindelwald would be defeated; Minerva McGonagall would graduate from Hogwarts. These are facts set in stone, histories recorded by the famous witchlet J.K Rowling. But there remain so much more, personal histories that, before this endeavor, I was unaware of, memories that have only now been added to the archives on the death of the possessor._

_At what price did these events come at? What was the final straw that gave Dumbledore the impetus to face his old friend? Whose death brought it about?_

_While all these men and women are long dead, I have grown so attached to them over this project that I cannot bear that they, like so many others I knew, be cut down in the flower of their youth by a war of blood status._

_Another pressing question is this: why, if Caradoc Dearborn was the love of Minerva McGonagall's life, is there no record of their marriage, or of any of their descendants? _

**Verse IV: Christmas with the McGonagall(s)**

Min kept smiling persistently as she pushed her friends out of the dorm.

"Really, just go! I am happy to stay at Hogwarts," she insisted. "I have so much studying to do before the NEWTS, I need the quiet!"

"You need a break!" Juliet argued.

"I have a library and study in my house!" pointed out Amelia.

Min shook her head briskly. "Can't afford to take a break, I need to get that scholarship into college, and I want to be able to consult Dumbledore on Transfiguration questions,"

"So send him an owl from my house!"

"Not this year Amy," Minerva said firmly. "Now go, you'll miss the train!"

She kept smiling while they hugged her, hurriedly gathered their bags and left her in the dorm. As soon as she was alone, it slid off her face, and she flopped onto her bed to stare sightlessly at the golden canopy.

She had not heard a word from her father. Not a line, a note, a coded postcard. She dared not make enquiries for fear of inadvertently exposing him to danger. After her mother's death, she and her father had withdrawn from their social circle, it was possible many of her father's friends had no idea he had even left the country. Christmas was a time for family. Few would remain at school, but she could not have borne going to Amy's and pretending to be happy and carefree. As it was, her friends were nearly onto her. They knew something was wrong, and it was only a matter of time before they found out.

She tried to stay at Hogwarts. She really did. She had made a detailed study plan to keep her busy and ensure her top marks in every subject, but after three days she was bored beyond belief, after five she was going spare.

Since there were less than twenty staff and students remaining at Hogwarts, they ate their meals together in a smaller chamber, and even this was too much for her. She felt as if Dumbledore's piercing stare could see right through her, knew exactly why she was so tortured. Instead of her usual hero worship of her idol, she turned for dinner conversation to Tom Riddle, the only other student near her age. He was, as she had always observed, pleasant, witty and intelligent, and while their daily banter was stimulating, even verbally sparring with such an opponent was not a distraction enough from her pain.

Before the second week of holidays had started, she had packed her bags and headed home. She was regretting the impulsive action before she had finished Disapparating from Hogsmeade, and it was with shaking fingers that she fumbled for her key on the doorstep of the large white house with faded blue shutters and a dark red roof.

The house was empty of course. They had never bothered with a house elf, and it appeared as if the housekeeper was long let go. All three levels were filling with dust and cobwebs, Doxies were rampant in the drapery, Snifflers running amok in the garden. Her mother would be turning over in her grave, but Min only smiled.

She would at least have something to do, at any rate.

Perhaps with magic, she could have cleaned the house in minutes; one of the advantages of being both prodigiously talented and of age, but she took a masochistic satisfaction in the grueling hard work of cleaning by hand. Sweeping, mopping, digging in the garden, hurling gnomes to next year, she pushed herself day in, day out until late in the night when she would collapse from near exhaustion and dream the deep sleep of the bone weary.

She knew her father would not be able to return for Christmas, but she still felt comforted by the idea that if he did, the house was ready for him. After her cleaning frenzy subsided and she whiled away the days in study, she could not help, despite her best efforts, looking out of the window at the just-visible mansion cluttering her horizon. She considered, for one wild moment, setting aside the last few years of estrangement and wandering down to the Dearborn's. She had spent more than one Christmas there. After nearly a week on her own, she was longing for some company, even one with all the mixed emotions and complications a simple conversation with Caradoc ensured. She was throwing off the restraint of seven years, slipping on a green coat and running a comb through her hair when the invitation came. The messenger was a familiar eagle owl. There had been a time when that owl had carried handwritten notes just for her, not this time. Today, she received a gold edged, impeccably elegant invitation to the McGonagall family from the Dearborns. Scanning its contents she dropped it like a hot coal on the library floor and left it there, unable to look it any longer, though its message was engraved into the back of her eyes.

This particular invitation was not a mark of the esteem his family had once held hers. Lady Dearborn would have sent this out to every pureblood in Britain. She had always expected this to happen someday, but the physical pain seeing the words on paper caused stunned her.

She took off her coat and went to rummage around the kitchen, refusing to think about it any longer. She didn't need this – especially not now! She was an atrocious cook – between her mother and the house elves at school, she had never needed to learn – so she had subsisted over the past week on whatever she could scrounge up from the village store. In a fit of impulsiveness she dared not analyze, she had arranged for a housewife to bring over a full turkey roast, with potatoes, pumpkins and cranberry sauce on Christmas Eve. She noted the matronly woman's worried stare as she took in the big house, far off the main road and cluttered with peculiar objects, and mustered a reassuring smile from somewhere.

"You're not alone here, Miss,?" the good woman dared to ask, as she directed her daughter to place the turkey on the kitchen table.

"No, my father will be along shortly," Minerva said automatically, watching the woman's face clear. She chivvied her children out of the house, departing with a fat bill in her plump paw and leaving Minerva disturbed by her own folly.

She had pulled decorations out of the cellars and made the house more festive than she had ever seen it, and when she placed the steaming roast between two candelabra in the dining room, she sighed in satisfaction.

It would be a perfect Christmas.

If either parent remained with her, of course.

Unable to look any longer at the visible proof of her slipping hold on sanity, she cast a quick spell to preserve the room as it was and escaped to her bedroom. It was here, after had slipped into her nightgown and was braiding her long hair, that she heard the knock on her door.

For a long minute, she was paralyzed. Her thoughts whirled, her heart raced. Barely allowing herself to hope, she stumbled out the door, unable to walk in a straight line and holding onto the walls as a guide. She opened the door with trembling fingers, practically aglow with anticipation – and she plunged from the dizzying heights she had soared when she saw before her, not her father, but Caradoc Dearborn.

"What are you doing, Dearborn?" she snapped, swallowing her disappointment.

"Can I come in?" he asked quietly. It was snowing – it would be a white Christmas after all – and his soaked dress robes clung to him wetly. She tore her eyes away from him and marched inside, leaving him to follow silently. When she pushed open the door to the library and knelt before the remnants of the fire she had lit earlier, he was next to her. She fumbled for her wand, he beat her to it, and the flames which sprang up in the grate were mingled red and green.

"Merry Christmas," she said, deliberately ignoring the other significance of the colouring. She still wasn't sure why she hadn't slammed the door in his face. She had been sorely tempted.

"Where's Ben?" he asked abruptly.

"He's not back yet" she replied, wrapping her dressing gown more tightly around herself and staring into the flames. It was the truth. He just didn't realize that Ben might not be back yet by New Year's, by Easter, by graduation. But he would come home. He had to.

She should throw Caradoc out before he discovered the truth. She should have never let him in. But to have Caradoc here in this familiar room, where they had spent so many hours poring over story and spell books or playing childish games and hiding from chores felt, despite their adult figures, _right_. She felt eight again, waiting with him for her father to come home and tell them a story. And the strength of that feeling gave her the courage to form the words she had not yet spoken aloud. The words seemed to speak themselves, breaking the comfortable silence they had managed to share despite everything that had gone before.

"He's in Germany. Tracking Grindelwald"

He jumped to his feet in shock.

"Germany!"

"You heard me"

"Sweet Salazar, you're telling me you're here alone!"

"I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself, Caradoc" she snapped, getting to her own feet. She was just tall enough to meet his eyes close to level, at the moment, they were narrowed furiously.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?"

"I'm a pureblood, Caradoc. Maybe I don't belong to your little Slytherin coterie, but I'm as safe from the blood fanatics as you!"

"Are you _insane_? Your father is tailing a Merlin-damned Dark wizard, and you think it's a good idea to make yourself an easy hostage? Why don't you just write 'blood traitor' on your forehead and parade around Vienna?"

"Why do you even care?" she shot back at him.

"I don't know," he said more quietly. She blinked, surprised as well as hurt, and he continued as if unable to stop.

"I should hate you. Every attempt I ever made in the last seven years you threw back in my face. Your rebuffed every move I ever made to fix us"

"I rebuffed you?" she cried, incensed. "You turned your back on me to play pureblood high society with your new pals-"

"I still wanted-"

"I don't have secret friendships Caradoc. I'm not afraid of what people think"

"I wasn't afraid, I was trying to survive, woman!"

"I won't hide who I am from anybody"

"Gryffindors and their bloody pride! I never asked you to!"

"You did once. You wanted me to pretend we weren't close in public. For your Slytherin reputation"

"I was eleven!" he yelled in frustration, actually throwing his hands in the air.

"So was I! What will it be next, that I pretend I don't associate with Muggleborns?"

"How did we even get onto this? Ben is somewhere in Germany, and we're fighting over first year"

"Because we've never talked about it," she screamed, balling her hands into fists.

"Caradoc, since school started, despite the fact we have been living in the same castle for over six years, we have never really discussed anything important!"

"I wrote to you for _years!_"

"You used letters as another way of avoiding the real problem," she rasped, realizing anew the truth of her statement. "Writing me letters could never be enough – and never solved anything!"

At last she broke down, the tears she had dammed up for months and years breaking free in a final triumph, racking sobs convulsing her thin body. He had never seen her like this. No one had. She had never been pushed so far, stretched so thin by such unimaginable terrors. He was still not completely dry from the snow, but he moved forward instinctively and wrapped his arms around her.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly as the indomitable Minerva Medea McGonagall wept into his shoulder.

"For everything"

She was the one crying, but of the two of them, he felt the most vulnerable. His whole life he had felt drawn to her, around her, he didn't think about who he was or his family name, he just acted. Her head fit perfectly onto his shoulder, he found himself smoothing back her hair, whispering assurances that all would somehow be well, he led her to the nearest sofa and allowed her to cry until she was spent, and lay quiescent in his embrace.

Even when they were children, she had always been his pillar, the strength he relied on, to have that situation reversed was terrifying.

"It's not so much you, as Ben, and everything," she managed. She could still read as many of his thoughts as he could hers, and this, despite everything, gave him hope.

"It's the first Christmas Mother is gone, and – it's hard"

He tightened his grip around her, and she moved her head to rest more comfortably on his shoulder.

'I've ruined your Christmas," she said, attempting to regain some composure. He chuckled and she could feel his rumbling laughter shake his chest. She instantly split into three people: the Min who was ready to melt into a gooey weak kneed mess, the Minerva who noted that they were yet to resolve any of their problems, and the girl somewhere in between who wanted to run from such intimacy with any living being.

"You've made it," he said sincerely, playing with loose strands of her hair. Min won out over the others and curved her mouth into a slow smile and relaxed. They sat in the perfectly companionable silence only possible with old and dear friends so in tune with each other that the spoken word is superfluous, each savoring the richness of a moment together for once not marred by strife or hurt. The passage of six years could not be turned back, but they had years ahead of them, of lives to be lived, dreams to be chased, and moments to be cherished.

And then Caradoc pressed his lips to her hair and sighed against her head in contentment.

"This is much better than the stuffy pureblood party Mother is throwing"

She stiffened immediately as his words sank in.

_How could she have forgotten?_

Minerva took over, breaking free of his hold and forcing them to remember to breathe.

"What's wrong?" he asked worriedly. He reached out and cupped her face in his hand, forcing her to meet his eyes, she turned away and he let his hand drop.

"Get out," she said suddenly, sounding bone weary.

He gaped at her, stunned.

"I'm sorry if I offended you – I thought-"

"Just go Caradoc," she said retreating to the other side of the fireplace. When he didn't budge, she turned on him, her emerald eyes furious.

"Your fiancée will be missing you," she spat.

Relief broke through him like a wave.

"I'm not engaged," he said firmly. "I'm only seventeen, it's crazy!"

She shrugged. "So are you, if you think you can get out of it"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he demanded, striding over to her and matching her glare for glower.

"I received an invitation earlier. For your 'stuffy party'. Only your mother called it an engagement party."

"I don't believe it," he said instantly. She laughed with more than a tinge of bitter hysteria. The invitation was still crumpled on the library floor; she Summoned it and tossed it his way. He grasped its meaning in an instant but continued to finger it as if in a daze, still stunned his parents had gone to such lengths to ensure another heir.

"What kind of parent does this? I haven't asked her to marry me. Didn't they think that was just a little important?" he asked, running his free hand through his hair distractedly. It was getting long, she noticed detachedly.

"Doesn't matter now," she said, striving for an indifferent tone. "It's announced in public, you can't cry off, and she won't. You are slightly more attractive than Cygnus, after all"

"Cygnus is three quarters crazy, one quarter fanatic!"

"My point stands. So please, Caradoc, go back to your fiancée, to your family, and your world, and let me be"

"Tell me I have another option," he pressed her, looking intently into her eyes, too close for her comfort. The naked pain on his usually composed features chafed her already sore spirits.

"Caradoc, you've never let your parents down in your entire life. I certainly doubt you will start now and embarrass them in front of the wizarding world"

"Tell me that I have a reason to," he said softly, taking another step towards her.

She met his gaze squarely, drained past the point of tears.

"You need to make these decisions for yourself, Caradoc. On your own, and for the sake of your own future. I won't be the excuse you use, for this, or for anything"

"We don't have all the time in the world. There is a war"

"All the more reason for you to grow up" she said, and there was an air of finality in her statement that chilled her, as if it was the omen of some impending doom. He felt it also – she could tell by the way his court mask slipped into place, his eyes become unreadable, even for her, and without another word he turned and swept out of the room, leaving her there, unable even to cry.

His dramatic exit was ruined, however, by his glimpse of the dining room on his way out. As he passed it, he saw it was decorated within an inch of its life, the table set with all its glory; roast, lace tablecloth, candles still burning. Three places set.

The head of the table; where Diana had always been laughingly chivied by her husband into sitting in, the place on her immediate right, where a happier, brighter Min perched, and the foot of the table, where the Chief Auror mockingly placed himself.

Biting his lip, he took out his wand and before Disapparating performed a single spell.

"Expecto Patronum"


	7. The Once and Future King

_Sometimes the most vivid memories of all are of ordinary things.. brief moments of unexpected joy that spread their rosy tinge to otherwise beige days and nights._

_And of course, try and we might, there are memories that we cannot forget.. turning points which signaled the end, if only we had the wit or foresight to recognize them as such……….._

_, _

The old year was dying. In a few moments it would slip away entirely, be forever beyond her reach. She wondered if the weight of the most trying experience she had gone through in the year that stole her mother, borrowed her father and tested her sanity, would be lifted when the year 1944 was replaced with 1945.

It had been the first year she had a secret to hide from her sister-friends, and though she had taken comfort in their sympathy that painful Christmas night they had forced themselves into her home, she had come out here to seek space from them now. Amy and Juliet had dragged her to the Bones family house and then made it their mission to ensure one of them was with her at all times. She appreciated their company, but it was a shackle as well as an embrace. She could not bear their pity, well meaning as it was, and there were times she needed to break free, to roam unfettered. Something deep within her stirred from its slumber and thrilled to the bitter cold of the night, and had prompted her to climb up to the ancient tree house loved by generations of Bones children to hold a frosty vigil with the old year.

The tree house, like magical tents, was a far cry from its Muggle counterpart. On the outside, it appeared to be a roughly hewn, miniature log cabin perched precariously on the boughs of a great oak tree a short distance from the main house. Inside however, it was a large, circular room filled with hammocks, sofas squished against the walls. One wall was stacked with classics like _Babbity Rabbity,_ records were tossed a careless heap near the gramophone. Minerva had lit a fire in the rusty grate, and it warmed her as she huddled by a window, looking out into the night.

She wondered how long it would be before one of two snapped and came to find her. Amy would be engrossed in Orion, so it would probably be Juliet. Both girls had gotten over their hurt at being excluded from her secret, but she had her own suspicions why they had been so quick to forgive. She knew they worried over her – no one had ever accused her of being blind – but the year of 1943 had been one of change, and secrets. Min was not quite so absorbed in her own problems that she had not noticed the sadness that was seemed permanently present in Juliet's wistful eyes, or that she never mentioned her family any more. Amy, on the other hand, could be caught staring dreamily out of windows with a silly smile pulling at her cheeks, would blush rosily for no apparent reason, and Min was sure she had caught a split second gleam of cold metal on Amy's left hand, though when she blinked, it was gone.

For the first time, they were keeping secrets. They were plunging deeper into love affairs, distancing themselves irrevocably from their origins. Juliet had always preferred fictional loves, finding no Hogwarts boy any comparison to Laurie, Darcy, or Gilbert, but Min wondered if this would always last. Amy, with her pretty face, infectious laugh and wealthy family, had always had strings of suitors, but had found them tiresome, if flattering bores, till she fell for Orion. Min herself had spent her school career holding everyone at a certain distance; she threw her heart into her studies, reasoning that it was highly unlikely she would find lifelong happiness in a teenage beau. Between balancing her student organizations, maintaining her near perfect grade scores, and juggling both Quidditch and prefect duties she had no time to regret, or wonder. Deepest affection was never as uncomplicated as books made out, anyway. She was alone.. and perhaps would be as her friends married and had children and grandchildren. Not everybody gets their happy ending, or there would be no charm in fairytales. It fell to the lot of some to guard and protect, so that others could live.

She did not know what life held for her. It was as yet unknown, vistas of unexplored wildernesses opening up before her. But she would face it with all the spirit she had forgotten recently. She was a Gryffindor, and even despair can be battled.

In the end, the start of the new year proved therapeutic. She still had no word on her father, but constantly busy every moment of the day with study, Quidditch, and her many other duties, she had no energy to worry, no time to allow herself to give way to the depression which threatened to engulf her if she ever stopped. Juliet or Amy kept a watchful vigilance over her, but the greatest difference in her life was the re emergence of Caradoc. She had expected a sort of awkward avoidance would arise after their spat, but it seemed instead to have broken down all boundaries between them. They had come to an unspoken agreement not to mention that night, and if their brief, carefully neutral conversations in the library or their mutual acknowledgement in the corridors was not lacking in charged tension, it was still more markedly civil than their relations had been in years.

And that, she told herself, must suffice. She had no idea whether he was engaged – she left the room every time he was mentioned in common gossip, but little things – his sardonic smile, a sharing of a private joke when their classmates were foolish, the way his brittle court mask slipped when she smiled at him, the way his hand flew to his hair whenever she bumped into him unexpectedly – had her grinning as foolishly as Amy.

The woman in question was acting undeniably peculiar. She would jump when addressed, trail off in the middle of sentences, blush furiously during meal times for no apparent reason, and if Minerva spent more time in the common room, she would notice her conspicuous and increasing absence.

She was not the only one acting strangely. A hush had fallen over the castle, and for once the rumour mills churned with tales of war, and loss, as news of the war spread. Aurors and Hit Wizards were enlisting in regiments to cross the Channel, causalities were amassing, and tensions among the students were running high.

"No," she said firmly. Beside her, Alex nodded his agreement, straightening behind their desk. The prefects were scattered around their study, today was an only informal meet, and on every face was varying levels of discontent. Some hid it better – seventh year Ravenclaw prefect Sylvia Boot looked only mildly outraged at this imposition to her study time, similarly sixth year Hufflepuff Griselda Marchbanks appeared coolly indifferent, tugging on her long red hair absently. Others were openly rebellious.

"But Quidditch practice-" started fifth year prefect Gryffindor Ignatius Wood at the same time as sixth year Ravenclaw Percival Rookwood. They eyed each other suspiciously as Minerva tsked.

"Practice will be rescheduled. This is more important."

"But, Minerva," argued Altair McMillan, pushing his red hair out of his eyes in frustration. The seventh year Hufflepuff prefect was used to getting his own way.

"I know everybody is busy, and worried, but we are the heart of the school," Alex backed her up smoothly. "If we do not show that we are taking the war seriously, but calmly, we will have either dangerous disbelief or a full panic on our hands"

"So double patrols will continue in place for now, at least until we discover who killed the roosters," Minerva completed.

"The spiders are disappearing also" piped up fifth year Ravenclaw Gaea Lovegood dreamily. Min was not quite sure what Dippet had been thinking to make her a prefect, her feet generally hovered far above the ground. But then, Dippet had very little faith in the efficacy of any female prefect, so perhaps he had not really cared. At the snickers coming from the Slytherin prefects, Minerva frowned and raised her voice.

"The issue of bullying has come up yet again," she said, moving her gaze from openly derisive Orion Black to the more unreadable sixth year Tom Riddle. He smiled at her, the merest quirk of lips, and she felt suddenly dizzy, almost swaying in her seat.

"Some of my Ravenclaws – particularly Myrtle Henderson have been victimized, but none of them come to me directly," continued Alex, apparently not noticing her lapse. He surveyed the gathered prefects sternly, but she sourly noticed that at least three of the females; some of them, like Indira Patil, old enough to know better, still preened under his glance. He wasn't _that_ attractive. "I want your year mates to feel comfortable around you. No pulling rank unnecessarily, I'd rather they came to us with their problems early so we can nip them in the bud.."

Alexander continued talking, wrapping up the meeting with his usual warm charm and seeing the prefects out of the study. He returned to find her gazing absently into space.

"Are you alright?" he asked diffidently. "You look tired. Don't stay up too late on that Arithmancy essay now."

"I've finished it.. I think I just have a headache coming on"

"Go to Madam Bones in the infirmary. I'll walk you now?" he offered, looking up from the paperwork he had been neatly stacking.

"No, I'm fine," she assured him. "I just need to clear my head."

Acting on an impulse, she snatched her broom from where she had stored it under her desk and escaped to the Quidditch pitch.

It was empty for once, a rare occurrence. Slipping into the ancient robes, worn soft by years of wear that she kept in the change rooms, she kicked off her Silver Arrow 15 and left the world behind her. The wind teased her hair, whipping colour into her normally pale face, but it remained mercifully dry. There was no one else in the world but her; nothing else existed except for the feel of wood beneath her fingers, the exhilaration pumping through her blood.

And then her heart began to race for a different reason.

She was no longer alone. He met her gaze and had the audacity to wink. Flying closer, he leaned over to her and whispered

"Tip, you're it," before racing away.

She stared at him for a long incredulous moment before abandoning sense and dignity and following after. He had always been a first rate flier; she had never quite understood why he was not on the Quidditch team, but remained grateful for it. In the end, after a particularly spirited chase that involved her weaving in and out between stands, she lost him. She looked around, scanning the pitch, the barest frown creasing her brow. At last she spotted him, not in the pitch itself just beyond it, hovering a few feet below the ground, his dull brown sweater blending in with the bark of the trees framing him. Muttering a silencing charm – no one could afford to leave their wand behind anytime, these days – she snuck up behind him and grabbed his shoulder.

"Tip," she said victoriously, but even as she smiled, it changed to a horrified gasp as he slipped through her fingers, tumbled headlong off his broom to fall into a tangled heap of limbs.

She sped downwards, dropped her broom to the frozen floor and knelt over him.

"Cad, are you alright?" she asked urgently. When he made no response, she pulled him over onto his back – to find him suppressing a smile that gave way to outright laughter.

"Minerva, I had no idea you cared – OW! What was that for?"

"You idiot, I thought you were dead!"

"I'm insulted you think a three foot tumble would finish me off" he pouted, brown eyes twinkling mischievously.

"I'll finish you off myself if you try that again," she said primly. "The name 'Cad' is just perfect for you, you scoundrel."

He sat up abruptly, which brought his head far too close to her and she flushed, memories of Christmas worming their way back. He did not comment on it, perhaps writing it off as the wind, but he neither moved away from or closer to her.

"I need your help," he said seriously, all traces of teasing gone from his tone.

"What have you done?" she asked, instantly suspicious.

He scrubbed one hand through his hair and fixed his gaze on the just visible Forbidden Forest.

"I – um, well, did you know there's a ball in a few weeks?"

Despite the tension of the moment, she was forced to quell a slightly hysterical bubble of mirth; the smooth urbane Slytherin was never this inarticulate. She realized he was waiting for a reply – or perhaps trying to string together a coherent sentence, and took pity on him.

"I am in charge of organizing it, Caradoc," she said, not unkindly.

"Ah. Well, I was hoping you would grace me with your company at it."

She hesitated, unsure of how to refuse sensitively.

"Dearborn, I don't think -"

"I'm not asking you as a hint to my parents," he said quickly, and she closed her mouth. He rushed on, the words tripping over each other. She wondered why he was so nervous; it wasn't as if he hadn't done this many times before.

"I'm begging you actually. You're the one who always wanted to be publically friends – and look, Min I need a friend right now. Every girl in Slytherin, oh and half the Ravenclaws as well, heard that my parents want me to contract a betrothal, and well, you see how it is, don't you?" he asked beseechingly.

"Poor, poor Caradoc," she said sarcastically, but she noticed he did have a slightly hunted look about him.

"You're the only one I can trust, and who won't get the wrong idea". She stiffened at this, but he for once he didn't notice.

"Please, Min. I've had to Disillusion myself in the corridors to escape some of the more feisty Hufflepuffs".

She suddenly felt the January cold. So she would play the friend role, would she? At least, until a suitable bride came along to replace her.

"I'm already going with Prewett," she said flatly.

"He already told me he doesn't mind, it was out of convenience since you are both planning it."

"You asked him first?" she snapped, springing to her feet and suppressing her amusement at such a scenario.

He followed, and seized her chapped hands in his.

"I had to know whether I should transfer to Durmstrang," he said unrepentantly. He looked down at her frosty glare, one of the few boys at Hogwarts taller than her and then did the unimaginable. Dropping to one knee, he brushed his lips over her knuckle.

"Minerva Medea McGonagall, will you be my knight in shining armour?" he asked earnestly. She shivered, but not from the cold. She liked his position far too much.

"Get up, you lout," she laughed, concealing her vulnerability with a forced smirk.

"Not 'til you agree," he said in a singsong voice.

"We'll be sitting with Amy and Black. Is that going to be a problem?'  
He got up and seized her in a bear hug. She broke free and patted her hair, suddenly realizing she was wearing her oldest, most unbecoming robes.

"I shared a dorm with him for five years, I'll manage," he said cheerfully.

"Shared?" she pounced, eyes narrowing.

He swore.

"Ah Salazar.. you really will be the death of me. It's a house secret, but…. Slytherin gives NEWT students their own rooms. Ravenclaw does also actually."

Trying not to think of how he had come across that bit of information -_Sylvia Boot? Or maybe Indira Patil…-_ she summoned a sneer.

"Typical"

"Anyway, I hope your dancing has improved since the last time," he teased, ruffling her hair patronizingly and walking her back to the castle. They bickered good naturedly until they reached the Great Hall, and then he did something that surprised her. In full view of the dozen or so students scattered about, he leaned over and kissed her cheek, before whistling his merry way to the dungeons.

She stood still as if pole axed for a moment, and then donning her most impassive face, she went in search of Gryffindor tower, and her friends.

Caradoc Dearborn woke up in a cold sweat. To any onlooker, his long lean limbs were still sprawled out heedlessly in sleep, his breathing even, but behind closed lids his mind was working furiously. Something was wrong. He meticulously set up wards and trip jinxes around his bed before sleeping, but all remained in place, or the room would be flooded in light and ringing with noise. He reached out with his senses – and found nothing. Not malfunctioning wards, but a lack of them. It shouldn't be possible, but…

"Good evening gentlemen," he drawled, cracking open an eyelid. The three men standing before his bed exchanged looks of consternation he glimpsed briefly as they lit their wands. The two Black brothers seated themselves unasked on the foot of his bed, while Avery remained standing behind them. Caradoc's eyes narrowed.

"How did you slip through my wards?" he asked, unable to help himself. He was not playing the game well tonight, but then, he had tired of it long ago. A smug smile flickered past Avery's face, but the Blacks remained expressionless. Orion Black was the pattern scion of the Black family, with his aristocratic profile, cool grey eyes, currently obscured by his elegant fall of dark hair. His younger brother Alphard resembled him only slightly, his round chubby face lacking the refinement of his brother's chiseled features, his eyes a less interesting blue, his hair a dull brown. When they were side by side, as they were now, it was if Alphard has served as a rough draft, or was an amateur reproduction of the sculpted masterpiece that was Orion Black. Despite this – or because of it – Caradoc had always liked Alphard better.

The silence stretched out for some time until Caradoc yawned ostentatiously.

"Look chaps, should I just go back to sleep, or do you want something?". Definitely not playing the game well tonight.

"You haven't spent any time with the Brethren recently," Orion said coolly.

Caradoc snorted.

"The last time I did, it was an excuse for Tom Riddle to lord it over everyone," he said contemptuously. Another look passed between the three, at the word 'lord' Alphard actually snickered. He quieted at glare of his brother, who appeared to be spokesman.

"Dearborn, you have taken no part in the initiation of first years, have rarely been in the common room and never in Brethren's chambers."

"You also haven't had a woman since – wait, when _was _the last time you had a woman,?" queried Avery.

"Shut up, Avery" Orion and Caradoc said simultaneously. Avery merely smiled.

"You may be getting leg shackled to that pretty Bones dish, but Dearborn and I-" he broke off as he found Orion's wand at his neck.

"I don't want to hear another word about my girl from you," he ordered, eyes darkening dangerously.

Caradoc cleared his throat. "If you are quite done, gentleman? Consider me warned and leave my chamber," he requested.

The three Slytherins' faces cracked into identical grins.

"Oh, this isn't a warning," Avery said gleefully. "This is a summons."

Caradoc forced his face into an impassive mask.

"Lead on," he said, dangerously quiet. They did not touch him – he had not fallen that far yet, but they waited as he donned his Brethren robes and stepped out into the torch lit corridor. The Black fell in place beside him, and Avery brought up the rear, and as they walked silently through the winding passages, he was reminded forcibly of the Muggle WWI talking pictures Min was so fond of. He quickly turned his mind away from that topic – Minerva was a subject that might well kill him where he was going.

At last they were there, in the unlit cavern miles below Hogwarts proper. The moment he squelched ankle deep into the phosphorous water lining the cavern floor, it caught fire, flamed into a maelstrom that surrounded him.

"Who dares go here?" boomed a deep voice, echoing throughout the cavern.

"I am a true son of Salazar, and I seek counsel with my brethren," Caradoc intoned unenthusiastically. Awed as he had been in fourth, and even fifth year, the melodrama of the Brethren had begun to grate. He rolled his eyes as the maelstrom spun impressively before clearing to reveal the familiar den of anarchy. Lavishly hung with green silk banners, the tooled furniture was of far better quality than that of the common room. A handful of young men were scattered around the long room, drinking, gambling and smoking. One half dressed youth was passed out on a hammock with a similarly attired young lady, her identity, if little else, hidden by her dark mane.

Caradoc's lip curled in disgust and even Orion sneered.

"He does realize he'll have to modify her memory?" he queried.

"Naturally," drawled a silky voice from behind them. Caradoc turned to see Tom Riddle leaning carelessly against the mantelpiece, twirling a dented scepter, its shine long dulled, in one hand. A fire blazed behind him, green of course. Salazar did like tradition.

"Mulciber does know the rules," Riddle continued. "Sit down, Caradoc."

Caradoc remained standing, meeting Riddle's eyes impassively. Riddle straightened and smiled contemptuously, and Caradoc felt a hand clamp on either shoulder and forcibly seat him in a chair before Riddle. He spared a quick glance of betrayal for Orion, whose mouth tightened in response. On his other side, Alphard's face was carefully neutral.

"Do you think Slytherin got along with his old man?" Caradoc asked randomly, noting with interest the whitening of Riddles knuckles as he gripped the scepter more tightly at his words.

"What?" asked Alphard blankly.

"Well look around," Caradoc waved his hand expansively, encompassing the opulent room with its carved wooden panels and jade inlaid tables. "And then there's the fancy entrance, the rumored existence of a filthy great Chamber, the whole secret order of Brethren. Either Salazar had daddy issues, or he was seriously compensating for something".

"I tire of this," Riddle intoned, his mouth thinning.

"Or maybe he secretly wanted to be a playwright!" Caradoc continued recklessly. "I mean- " he found himself gagged with a flick of Riddle's long fingers, and had to content himself with glaring furiously at the sixth year.

"Yes, you might have seniority," agreed Riddle uncannily, his eyes boring into Caradoc's.

"But you haven't been acting the part, have you? Neglecting your brothers..no hazing of the lowerclassmen.. spending time with bloodtraitors…one would think you had no pride in your House, my dear Caradoc."

Caradoc was muttering garbled curses under the gag and Riddle smiled unpleasantly. He waved an imperious hand and Caradoc noticed a truly hideous gold ring he had never seen Riddle wear before. He heard rather than saw the room empty from his position before Riddle and wondered idly what they would do with Mulciber and his friend. Only Riddle, Caradoc and the two Blacks remained.

"Your thoughts betray you, Caradoc," Riddle said ominously. Despite his level best, Caradoc could not suppress the image of Minerva that flashed before his eyes. She was scowling in thought, her green eyes narrowed and her dark hair flying loose of its braid. She had been unaware of him watching her as she bent over her Transfiguration essay, and her face had none of the brittle hardness it assumed whenever they met.

Riddle laughed, a long low sound.

"I will never understand it," he said incredulously.

"In the prime of life, the scions of the oldest families, and you throw away centuries of pride to pant over some chit. Even you, Orion, are not immune. Do not think I have not noticed the decline in your dedication of late."

Orion coughed. "My lord, Amelia is pure of blood and proud of her lineage."

"As she should be," Riddle noted. He turned back to Caradoc, who was staring nonplussed at Orion.

"I will not, at this stage make you part from your lady love," Riddle promised. "Indeed, it will be useful to me to have you pursue your courtship. She is close to that Mudblood loving fool, Dumbledore, and I need a pair of eyes and ears there. You will report to me. That is all"

Riddle raised the scepter and extended the tip to prick Caradoc's throat. Caradoc blinked and found himself transported back to his own chamber. He landed unceremoniously on his rear and ripped the gag from his mouth. Livid beyond belief, he strode down the tunnel to Orion's room, wand raised. He slammed shut the door and pushed the slighter man against it.

"What the hell?" he roared.

Orion twitched out of his grip, rubbing his neck. He cast a quick spell around the room as Caradoc began to pace around his room. Orion's chamber was far neater than Caradoc's, his books were stacked neatly on his desk, and his bed made – probably by the house elves. Orion had finished his incantation, and was rummaging around in the cabinet beside his green velvet four poster bed. He pulled out a slightly dusty silver flask and conjured two glasses, filling them with a strong smelling amber liquid. He pushed one on Caradoc, when the tawny haired boy made to refuse, he rolled his eyes disgustedly.

"Trust me, you're going to need this," he insisted.

"I don't want a drink; I want to bloody kill you!" Caradoc spat.

Orion shrugged.

"I don't know where your head has been, soldier, but things have changed around here."

"Obviously! Since when do seventh years take orders from_ anyone?_ I did not put up with all that shit for years to lose my rank now. What were you playing at, Black? Mulciber I understand, but you?"

"I'm surviving, Dearborn," Orion snapped.

"There is a war on, and the revolution we've been waiting for is coming"

"Revolution," Caradoc repeated flatly.

"It's time to cleanse our world of all the filth that we've accumulated, yada yada. You heard it as much as I did growing up, about pruning the garden and cutting off infected limbs, but its real now, Caradoc."

"When did Riddle become our glorious leader? What the bloody hell was that down there?"

"He has strange powers. You saw how he apparated us out, you felt him in your mind. He can't be stopped"

Caradoc shook his head in denial but at last accepted the brandy. Black reclined against the wall and watched him pace again.

"What was that word he used?' Caradoc snarled. "I've never heard it before. Blood.. blood traitor? Is that it?"

"Riddle coined it. It's what he calls families that are pure, but have… errant sympathies"

"When did all of this happen?" Caradoc asked, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Wake up Dearborn!" Orion straightened, his voice rising.

"These ideas have always been there. In your family, in mine, in every pureblood dynasty, we've always known the world was degenerating. Every generation, we become weaker"

"Because we keep marrying our cousins. It's hardly a recipe for -"

"Don't be obtuse Caradoc. You hate groveling as much as any blue blooded male. Why should we have to spend our whole lives hiding who we are, for the sake of lower life forms?"

"Yes, but what has Riddle done to be crowned the heir of Slytherin?"

Caradoc spoke the words carelessly, but they lingered in the air, almost tangible, as he froze. He met Orion's eyes, a troubled dark grey and though his lips moved to form the thought on both their minds, his tongue could not move. Orion nodded nonetheless in acknowledgement of the double bind they were caught in.

"It's time to pick a side, Caradoc. I can only hope for your own sake you make the right decision."

Caradoc drained his glass in a single draught.

"So do I," he said slowly. "So do I".


	8. Love lifts us up where we belong

_Memory is such a peculiar thing. When I first walked these hallowed halls, I thought the Chamber a sacred place, a treasure trove of golden memories, a priceless record of days long past. It is all this, but more, for unlike the Muggle recording devices, the visions we experience here are complete; taste, sound, scent and touch, a thorough immersion into acts and thoughts. The danger, however, lies in the fact that, unlike recording devices, recall is never perfect, emotion, human frailty and the individuals self deceptions make it very easy for false memories to be interwoven with truth. It is this that makes my work so difficult and yet tantalizing, and when a memory comes to be requiring no reconstruction or corroboration, I rejoice. Far more accurate than the recall of chemically unstable organic creatures is the imprint of events that at times seep into buildings, and becomes as much a part of them as the bricks and mortar. It is from this comes the saying: 'the walls have eyes and ears'. However, the procedure of detecting, and extracting them, requires skills it has taken me long years to acquire._

_Hogwarts is a school soaked in the experiences of generations of witches and wizards. Countless students have passed through those walls, slept under those four poster beds, traipsed along those stone corridors. One would assume that layer upon layer of memory must cling thickly to the walls of that hallowed home, yet only fragments have been able to be extracted and bottled by those who labour here. There is one; the first memory I ever stepped into, that still contained such passion that it lingered in my mind for years afterwards. I have always had a curious disposition, but I truly longed to know the identity of the couple whose love was so enduring it imprinted onto the very walls. I wondered what became of the, if I had ever heard of them._

_Years later, when I gave my life to these archives, I at last understood._

"I love you, you know that?"

The tall young man wraps a possessive arm around the dark haired damsel. They are curled together in their refuge, their hideaway from the rest of the world. They had discovered the room quite by accident, and it was at once unlike any room they had ever seen before and strikingly familiar. Stepping inside it, she feels the innocence of her remembered childhood wash over her, cleanse her from the taint of the world, at her side, while he breathes in a peace he had never known at home or apart from her.

She has not told her friends about the room, they wonder at her increasing absences, but she ignores the questions growing in their eyes. He too is missed by his house mates as he spends more and more time in here with her.

"You save me," he tells her one day, wincing at how gauche he sounds, like the awkward teenager he has never been.

She slaps him, the first time she has ever struck a human being, and flushes a dull crimson from mixed fury and love.

"Don't ever say that," she breathes, taking his hand and leading him away from the world.

"You need to save yourself, or it will never be real"

He tries again, a different day.

"If not for you, I would be no different from the rest of my House," he tells her, resting his bristled cheek against the smooth unblemished planes of her own. This time she laughs at him, and he wonders what use magic is if he cannot capture that sound and carry it with him forever.

"You were always different, or I could never have loved you,' she says simply, linking her tapered fingers with his. She is all he thinks about. She is his shining star, a flaring beacon he cannot stay away from, and though her radiance is scorching he draws closer still. Perhaps it may be enough, even to drive away the cobwebs that linger in his heart, sear the sins that drip from his fingers. As he looks at her, drinking in the sight of her form, she reaches out and places her cold fingers against his chiseled face, tracing out the sharp contours. He is the product of a thousand years of selective breeding, and she fears his perfection.

She is pure, too but of a different sort.

He closes his eyes in contentment as she does what she has longed to do since the first time she looked his way and realized he had grown up beautiful. She dislikes pretty boys in general and on principle; all Alex Prewett's good qualities could not make up for the fact he would make a lovely girl, but even at fifteen there had been an edge which had drawn her to this youth, still caught somewhere between a man and boy. There had been something simmering behind the heavy lidded eyes that had intrigued her even then, an aura which had clung to him and become more visible as the years progressed.

Now, when they are grown to adulthood, she runs her fingers through his soft waves of hair and trembles with the knowledge that he is hers. He was unlike any other she had ever met or would ever know. Others might break their hearts over high school romances and silly flings, but she had known for a long time now that they were something more.

They have each other. It was enough. It would always be all they ever needed. They were not mere mortals; their love would blaze to the stars.

She has had to wait for him to reach this point and she hates it. Her struggle with self had been short and decisive; all she could do then was watch from afar and rage at the mistakes that would make the man. She would not go to him – if he could not come to her, he was not worthy, and she suffered in the years he dallied and dreamed.

When they first met, she had been scrawny and squeaky voiced, he had mocked her mercilessly as she in turn sniffed dismissively at his slight frame and embarrassing stammer. As they grew, he had overlooked her lithe form for the stunning beauties that abounded in their social sphere, and even as his taste refined, no level of sophistication could help him perceive the quiet wisdom in her clear, candid eyes, the strength that was coiled beneath her outwardly poised persona. She had seen him shoot up over the years, fill out and suddenly realize that when he swept into a room, every female eye turned to him. She had kept her own resolutely away, determined not to be another pathetic victim to his charm.

She had observed him nonetheless, and knew of the little things he thought he hid from the world. The innate courtesy he extended to all women, drilled into him by his family, and so at odds with his strings of love affairs. She caught the slight twitch that developed in his right eye when he was under pressure, the way he winced at the more callow remarks of his less urbane year mates, scoffed at the followers of Quidditch and yet owned a worn copy of _Quidditch Through the Age_. She knew he secretly tutored the more inept of the first years in direct contradiction of the Slytherin code. She knew his friends bored him, that he was far more intelligent than his marks suggested, and not half as clever as he thought he was if he thought he could escape from his dalliances unscarred.

He watches her as she laughs and chats and complains with her two friends, and wonders how they came from the same species. She is worlds away from him, sheathed in her innocence and guarded by her sisters, but he is drawn to her. He does not know how or when she crept into his mind and lodged herself there, but her hold on him grows daily, and he no longer wants thoughts of her to go away. He wishes he was worthy of her, but consoles himself with the promise to protect her always, to walks by her side and simply hold her hand if that is all she will permit. He will swallow his bile and be the brother if that is all she thinks of him, for a scrap of her overflowing affection is more precious than all the women who place tribute at his feet and fawn over him.

They were yin and yang, two halves of the same whole, opposite faces of the same coin. Once he had finally realized that, they had no greater pleasure than to while away the hours in the Room. They could sit in companionable silence for hours on end, neither feeling the need to fill the warm drowsy space with the weight of words. At other times, they would toss the balls of conversation between them; light, sparkling commentary on their friends, their classes and school gossip, serious musings on the war brewing beyond the school walls, passionate discussion of their hopes and dreams.

She reads fairytales, he prefers military histories, but they both devour the classics. She loved the new swing music, he thought it was vulgar, but they both took any excuse to put their formidable skills, the products of prescribed upbringing, in use. His impeccable dress sense warmed her heart, her understated elegance soothes his. His love of history broadened her mind, her conviction in herself and in him anchored his spirit.

In each others embrace, they were unaware any other existed.

She could be selfish, a little harsh and sometimes cruel. He was spoiled, too used to instant gratification and struggled in the times they were apart. She took him back after one indiscretion but warned him it could not happen again.

He knew he could only have such a porcelain princess if he married her. It will displease his family, for they have another in mind, but at this point, he no longer cares. He is done with submission. The day the idea of his ring warmed the remains of his heart, he knew how far he had fallen. He did not want her, he needed her. He could function without her of course, but it was a poor dreary existence, for she was his torch in the darkness, the one spot of screaming colour in his otherwise grey life. He wished he had not taken so long to come to her, that he had not wasted himself with those others, and come to her as untarnished as she deserved, but he was battered now, a little bruised and close to broken.

As she winds her fingers through his hair, he revels in the sensation, knowing no other man would ever be blessed by her touch. She was his, she always had been, and she would never belong to another. He was hers, and while he stumbled and fell, it would always be her. They would marry, and it was only a matter of time. She would be his for all of time.

No other woman has ever had the temerity to fall asleep in his arms, indulged in the intimacy of assuming her place there as her natural right rather than a gift graciously bestowed for a certain time. No other woman has ever had the power to irritate him so thoroughly; he can never let anything go, she can never resist proving him wrong. They argue as much as they dance and they sulk as much as they kiss, but they always come back to their place, to each other.

In their first year, they had been sent down different roads, leading to different destinations. In the summer of their second year, they holidayed in the same county, but never crossed each others paths and remained unaware of each other's existence. In their third year holidays and weekends, they were dragged along to the same parties, but rather than force stilted conversations under the watchful eye of their parents, he would escape with the boys, leaving her to dodge the delicate barbs of briar ridden conversation with the other girls of good families. In their fourth year, he glances up during a Potions lesson and finds her watching him, but merely smirks and accepts it as his due. In their fifth year, she is disgusted that he has a different girl every week. In their sixth year, he realizes she is what he was looking for in every other relationship, but that she is not to be charmed as easily. In the seventh year, they come of age, cast off the innocence and the constraints of childhood. They do not yet have to venture forth to find their place in an increasingly unstable world, but the time draws nears. In their seventh year, their paths cross again, intertwine, merge and become one, leading to a final destination. In their seventh year, they discover the Room, and in the shelter of its embrace, they find much more.

It is in their seventh year that he says the words that bind him to her forever. He brings her to their place, and kneels before her in supplication. She kisses him in return, the deepest kiss she has gifted him with yet, and that night, they do not return to their common rooms but sit together in their hiding place, hands clasped and alight with starry dreams, they imagine together their glorious future.

Other romances would fizzle out, for they were based on no more than hormones and exploited insecurities. They were different. They had been made of a different caliber, raised in a different way and no ordinary destiny could ever await them. They would blaze towards the stars he was named for, she would be his queen and ballads would be written about their love. Nothing could ever come between them. He was a Black, and Black men _always_ get what they want.

**Please leave a review and let me know what you think!**


	9. The Way We Were

Juliet frowned. Not for the first time, she had returned to an empty dorm. Curled up in her favourite armchair the common room with her tattered copy of _Pride and Prejudice_, she had lost track of time, but by half past ten, the common room had emptied. Amy should have been monopolizing the dorm at this time, trying out the fancy lotions and potions sent from Paris by her Grandmere, Min should have been staggering in clutching a stack of scrolls, or perhaps a pile of heavy books. Neither girl was there.

Juliet got ready for bed slowly, her movements painstaking but her mind far away. She could not shake the feeling of unease that had taken hold of her. Instead of dissipating, it seemed to grow stronger everyday, an itch she couldn't scratch, a creature just out of her line of vision.

Of course, she could just be romanticizing the sensation of being left out.

She had never been in love. Read about, yes, dreamed about it wistfully occasionally, but never experienced it. Despite living in the same castle as hundreds of boys, she had never been tempted by any of the few who noticed her – and they were only ever interested in getting close to Amy or occasionally Min. Her lack of romantic history had never bothered her; she had never really spared much thought for it. At least, not until her sisters fell in love with crashes that could be heard across the Channel.

Since the night in first year that they had mingled their blood from shallow pinpricks of Amy's silver dagger, they had been magically bonded sisters, but now, the others had gone forward to a place she could not follow.

She was not bitter. Not exactly. She was not ready for her Darcy, if any of the boys of the castle could ever match up to her ideal. But it was far from the first time that she wanted what they had. It was if they had been born under lucky stars, or touched by deities that had shunned her. Min was the most talented witch anyone had ever seen, Amy loved and was loved easily. They both made everything – school, relationships, serenity – seem so effortless. She had coped with it for years, had preferred the safety of being in their shadow rather than having the prying gaze of the masses on her. For the first time she wondered if it would be so painful.

Closing her aching eyes, her tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth as she was paralyzed with terror. Huge yellow eyes bore down on her, she turned to flee and found herself overrun by spiders. All shapes and sizes, they swarmed across her, crawling into her hair, across her skin, into her screaming mouth.

She felt someone take her hand in his larger one, she turned to meet his gaze desperately and –

"Juliet!"

She woke to a darkened dorm lit by a single wand. A wide eyed Min held it close to her face; a tousled Amy knelt next to her bed, placing a cool hand on her clammy forehead.

"Are you alright?" Min asked slowly, taking in the tremors that still racked her body.

"It was only a dream," Juliet croaked, sitting up and wiping her cheeks dry. Min and Amy exchanged a speaking glance, the latter climbed into Juliet's bed while the former rummaged around in her trunk before emerging victorious.

She threw a half eaten block of HoneyDukes Golden Crunch on the bed and nudged Amy unceremoniously so she too could climb in.

"It's not fair," Juliet said suddenly, not eating the chocolate Amy pushed in her hands.

"What isn't?" Amy asked cautiously.

"Everything. We're seventeen. We should be going to dances all night, or to the pictures, and swooning over collar ad men. Not thinking about wars, and wizards dying. The future should be beautiful – anything should be possible, but everything is ruined by this horrid war!"

"It's not fair," Min agreed soberly. Juliet's gaze, which had been heated, softened.

"I'm sorry Min," she said awkwardly, running her hand through her matted hair. Min shrugged.

"Let's talk about something normal," she decided. Both she and Juliet turned to Amy who was caught mid yawn and grinned sheepishly.

"Boys are stupid," she said through another yawn.

Despite herself, Juliet found a ghost of a smile tugging at her lips.

"What did he do this time?" she asked.

In answer, Amelia flopped facedown onto her pillow and groaned aloud. Somewhere between ranting about absurdly secretive Slytherins, disappearing Dearborns and inconsiderate Dark wizards starting wars in their NEWT year, the three of them did something they had not since an eleven and two month year old Amy put aside her differences with an eleven year old Min to comfort a homesick Juliet, they fell asleep in the same bed. They had grown since then, and the four poster bed was just big enough to be comfortable, glossy brown curls just brushing the golden mane slightly tangled in unfashionable long black locks.

Love would separate these sisters, send them all over the world and possibly to untimely graves, but their most precious memories of their Hogwarts years would include the moments shared, from the night they mingled blood and magic to become sisters, to the day their perfect understanding was fractured.

It was not that day, but it drew near.

Amy was, unusually, the first to wake, and enjoyed taking her time in the bathroom unhindered as she curled her hair and lined her lips. She daringly applied powder to conceal the traces of a mostly sleepless night, and wandered down to breakfast.

The house tables were mostly deserted, students taking advantage of the weekend to have a lie in, and for once she actually had a selection to choose from. Kippers or sausages? Maybe both? Muffins with jam, or crumpets with honey?

"Easy there," teased Tiberius Ogden, looking up from his book as she piled up her plate and sat across from him. She sniffed in reply, well aware that behind his _Principae Arithmancium_ he had a plate twice as full as hers and would stay reed thin. Boys!

She loitered over her coffee, flicking through the paper backwards from the society pages – what was Aunt Bethany thinking, wearing that at her age? - to the newstories. And then a notice, in small print on the corner of page 28 made her hands shake so badly she needed to put down her coffee before the whole paper was drenched.

_It is our pleasure to accept into our service these fine young men. _

_Captain James Fawcett has accepted command of the Third Division. _His new wife would not be happy to have him leave for the Continent so soon after the wedding.

_Murray Lovegood.. Peter Crouch….Rex Davies.._all of these men were under thirty, there were many more she knew slightly, or had heard of, but she read the list with only guilt tinged interest until she saw the lines -

_Edgar Bones, appointed aide de camp to General Scrimgeour. Lieutenant Nathanial Bones, enlisted in the Fourth Regiment._

Swearing under her breath without any regard for decorum, she scanned the hall. Sure enough, Augusta was slumped over at the Hufflepuff table, her eyes red rimmed and her hair uncombed, radiating misery even from the opposite end of the hall. Amy hastened over, forcing herself to take deep breaths.

"It'll be alright," she said soothingly. "They're idiots – oh, I suppose they're not, they are doing the right thing, though enough of us have died fighting already – but we need to be brave for them. They'll be back before school ends, you'll see."

Augusta stared at her, incomprehension in her wide blue eyes.

"What are you on about,?' she asked, little real interest in her tone.

Amy blinked. Augusta would not be this calm if she knew her favourite cousin was in danger of being decimated by Dark wizards.

"You like tired," she hedged. "Is it re sitting Charms? I've been meaning to find you a tutor, I really have-"

"It's not Charms," Augusta said flatly, dashing at her eyes almost angrily.

"Tell me what's wrong," Amy demanded, really beginning to worry now.

"Altair McMillan," Augusta whispered, staring at the table. Amy glanced involuntarily down the Hufflepuff table in time to see the red head look away quickly and strike up a conversation with the pretty brunette beside him. Several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place in Amy's head.

"I thought you said he was a pompous bore when he escorted you out?" Amy probed.

Augusta's bottom lip trembled and then the diatribe broke out in a flood.

"He is – but he didn't ask me to the ball! He said I was too intense! Me! And he asked Cynthia Fudge– Cynthia, of all people, to the ball! She shares my dorm and she's been insufferable over it!"

"There's still plenty of time to find a date," Amy tried to comfort her. A spark ignited in Augusta's eyes.

"It's easy for you to say that," she said bitterly. "You have Orion, the most handsome boy in the school, and a _Black_ madly in love with you. Me, everyone just knows as your little sister,"

Amy didn't flinch. "I, not me," she corrected absently. "And don't give me that look, there's plenty of boys after you, you just have too much sense to waste your time and energy on someone who doesn't love you for the intense, passionate stubborn brat you are," she said firmly. "And not that it matters – it's not why I love Orry – but you're twice as pretty as Cynthia"

Augusta tossed her hair back but seemed to be hiding a smile. "He said he couldn't marry a girl who couldn't even pass Charms. Can you believe that?"

Amy's gaze hardened. "The hypocrite failed his Transfiguration OWL – I know, because Dumbledore asked Min to tutor him," she griped. Standing up, she towed Augusta not to Altair but across the hall to the Gryffindor table, where Min and Juliet were tucking in to breakfast.

"What are you doing today?" she demanded.

Min looked up from her kippers.

"Patrol schedules," she admitted.

"Divination homework," supplied Juliet with a smirk. She continually aced Divination relying only on her active imagination and surprising intuition. With a pang of guilt, Amy realized those bags under her eyes were not the product of one night, but had become a common appearance. She made up her mind in an instant.

"Not anymore. Girls day out in Hogmeade," she announced. There were simultaneous protests

"Again?"

"I have work to do!"

She tapped her foot impatiently. "Min, what are you planning to wear to the ball?"

Minerva hesitated. "I have those fancy black dress robes. I only ever wore them once-"

"To your mother's funeral!" gasped Amy, too shocked to be delicate. She exchanged a horrified look with Augusta, who had stopped struggling.

"Get up. Now." Amy ordered. Juliet spared a grieved look for her bacon and eggs before yielding to the manic gleam in Amy's eyes.

Shopping with the Bones girls was like surviving a hurricane. There was only one brief respite when Min paused outside Zonko's to give a detention to third year Rubeus Hagrid.

"You know you are restricted to the grounds for another month," she said, not unkindly.

The strapping young lad towered over even Minerva, but looked sheepishly down at her.

"I'm sorry miss," he mumbled.

"It's Minerva," she sighed, for the tenth time. "I will have to give you detention, but I don't want to have to take anymore points off you after the last incident."

He blushed furiously.

"They don't mean no harm, miss – uh, Minerva. They were orphaned; they needed someone to look after them!"

"Your dorm is no place for salamanders," she said firmly. "It's very lucky you weren't burnt more badly. You can report to Professor Dumbledore for your detention."

He nodded and began to shuffle back to the castle. She bit her lip.

"Hagrid," she called, and he turned back in surprise. "Make sure you get back to the castle… before dark, to serve your detention"

Comprehension slowly dawned on his face, helped by the giggles of her dearest of friends, and he returned happily to Zonkos. She shuddered at the thought of the points he would lose with whatever he acquired in that den of anarchy.

"He means well," she said defensively, before she was once more swept into Cyclone Amelia. They were bustled through more shops she knew existed in Hogsmeade, poked and prodded by seamstresses and shoemakers, jewelers and glove makers, and things nearly became ugly between the Bones sisters over a pair of emerald studded heels. Augusta won in the end after she turned on the waterworks about being the dateless younger sister always overshadowed, but Amy was in such a foul mood after this even Min kept her voice neutral as she refused to allow Amy to pay for her robes.

"I'm not a pauper," she said, for once not noticing Juliet's wince. Amy did however, and sighed.

"These are all going on the family bill because we are family," she said firmly. "And because they're bribery to get you to come to the Black's Easter Supper."

Augusta let out a soft oooh of understanding.

"The one where you have to wear green or silver?" Min asked incredulously.

Amy had the good grace to look sheepish as she nodded. Her own dress robes were a green so pale as to be almost white, lavishly sprinkled with tiny seed pearls. She had fought for the colour with Augusta, who had settled for blue-green robes on the condition of monopolizing the white lace their grandmother had sent from Paris. Amy had bullied Juliet into a pearl grey silk, laughing off her concerns about the chill. They were simply cut in a Grecian style and murderously expensive. Juliet stroked the full skirt longingly and turned to the secondhand rack, only to be met by Amelia's wand point.

"Don't even think about it," she threatened. She had been similarly violent with Min and a set of velvet robes – emerald green this time, with tasteful embroidery on the bodice and full sleeves.

And that was just the robes.

Juliet's brain caught up with her body and she picked her jaw off the floor.

"I can't go," she protested. "I'm a Muggleborn, I'll be the main course!"

Amelia snorted. "You are part of my family," she said haughtily. "I want you there, and Orion knows that. I want you both there," she said, eyeing the emerald robes meaningfully.

"You could have just asked," Min said drily.

"You would have found some excuse. You don't have anything green, even though it does wonders with your eyes, you lucky thing. Caradoc won't know what hit him" she added with a wicked laugh.

"What is going on there?" pounced Augusta, stepping away from a huge emerald ring that was probably worth Min's entire wardrobe. "Because Phoebe Diggory in my Muggle Studies class swears you're going steady, but Rhiannon Avery, who sits behind me in Household Magic says – well, she's not very nice, and she said you-"

"Shut up, Gussy," Amelia said amiably.

As the sisters began squabbling for the umpteenth time, Juliet linked arms with Min and levitated their bandboxes to hover behind them as they walked back to the castle.

"Don't snap your cap love, but what in Merlin's name is actually going on with Dearborn Min?"

Min shrugged.

"I don't actually know," she admitted. "I haven't talked to him since, he doesn't come to class and he barely come to meal times." She trailed off as the weight of her own words hit her. She scowled, her full lips thinning and Juliet staggered as the image flashed before her of the same scowl, only the lips impossibly thin, only the eyes wearied and deep set in a lined face framed by iron grey hair.

"Are you alright?" Amy asked, steadying her from behind.

"I can't shake this feeling that something big is about to happen," Juliet said, struggling for words. Min scanned the bustling Hogsmeade street skeptically, and she shook her head in frustration.

"Not yet. It's like there's something around the corner, or just below the horizon.. I can't see it, but I can feel its there," she mumbled.

"Is it bad?' asked Augusta curiously as Min and Amy swapped worried glances over her head.

"It's bad," Juliet confirmed. "And it's coming"

**Thoughts? Even if it's just "I don't completely hate you story?"**


	10. Revelations

_There are always turning points, days which stand out in our memory as the beginning of the end, or the dawn of a new era. We live hundreds and thousands of days which pass out of our conscious recall, but there are some days, days marked in blood and sweat and tears, which we carry with us always, even when we would rather not. January the 20th, 1944, was one such day for a number of students at Hogwarts._

Minerva blinked. There was something seriously wrong with her eyes. Perhaps she should look into spectacles. The only other explanation for the impossibility before her was that she was dreaming, caught in the bind of a fearsome nightmare, because this could not be real. There is a first time for nearly everything; first loves, first losses, first milestones, but there was never supposed to be a first time for this.

"An _Acceptable_?" she hissed furiously to Juliet, who was grimly fingering her own freshly marked essay and held it out of reach when Min tried to surreptitiously glance at her mark.

"It's a pass mark," Juliet said soothingly.

"But Transfiguration is my subject! I've never got less than a high E for it – or anything really, in my life!"

Juliet gave up and slouched further in her seat. If Min had been less preoccupied, she might have noticed her already delicate frame had taken on a gaunt cast, and that her wide blue eyes spent increasing amounts of time unfocussed, but in the state she was in she could barely aim at the fireflies trapped in her jar, let alone Transfigure them to gems. Despite her attempts at composure, two minutes later Min could not help bursting out with

"Even when I had dragonpox I still got an O!"

Behind her, she heard a heavy sigh; she turned around to glare at Roger Longbottom, who was lifting a sardonic eyebrow at her.

"Well, you have taken the hardest NEWTs there are and you do have the extracurricular load of three people," he pointed out.

"Did I ask for your opinion?" she snapped. He lifted his hands defensively.

"I'm just saying it's a miracle you fit everything in one day," he said calmly.

"He's right you know," Juliet said, eyeing her meaningfully.

Min fought the instinctive urge; even after all these years, to fiddle with the long golden chain that threaded her secret.

"I'm sorry," she said ruefully. "I've just been a bit overwhelmed recently,"

Roger grinned. He was not handsome – his nose was too big, and his mouth too crooked, but he had a relaxed, almost placid personality that was very soothing and would be probably be better suited to Hufflepuff than his home of Ravenclaw.

"NEWTS," he shrugged, turning back to his own jar of fireflies, which were glittering strangely, but still alive and flying.

Min's attention was already wandering. It was not NEWTS that worried her, though her appalling mark still rankled in one corner of her consciousness; she was exhausted both physically and mentally from her various activities. Normally it was a type of exhaustion she relished in, a sign of time well spent. It was a weight she had not felt – until now. Now all the brightly coloured balls she had been juggling were flying through the air too fast for her to catch them. And it was all that wretched boy's fault. He had no right to do this to her! She was better than this! Minerva Medea did not waste time worrying about where a boy was, and why he was avoiding her.

For avoiding her he certainly was. He did not see her in corridors, never showed up for meals, and when he bothered coming to class, he was half asleep in the very back, where she could not look at him without the whole class noticing. Not that she wanted to look at him. He was an idiot, and she a fool for thinking that after six years they could actually start afresh and not fall into their old ways. She was not going to waste anymore time she didn't have in wondering what she had done wrong. If she had been too proud too long, or if now that she had finally relented somewhat he had lost interest – the thrill, after all is in the chase, not the capture. Not that she was caught.

"Are you alright,?" Juliet's voice broke into her reverie. She was standing before Min in the emptying classroom, her school bag already slung across one shoulder. Min stood and closed her book, it slammed shut rather satisfyingly.

"I'm fine," she said sweetly. "Where's Amy?"

One would expect, so soon before NEWTs (mere months) an ambitious young witch like Amelia Bones would be firmly ensconced in class with her usually observant best friends. However she was not in the Transfiguration classroom, but the Room of Requirement, frantically writing the same essay her friends were currently bemoaning their marks for, while her beau was wearing a trail in the carpet.

Amy wondered when Orion would crack, let go of all the tension stiffening his back and carving lines on his face as he paced feverishly. She knew it was only a matter of time before he broke; whatever anyone else thought, she had always been the stronger one of the pair. But she would not make the first move. Let him think it was all his idea.

"Amelia, darling, I think we should announce our betrothal."

Amy's head jerked and she dropped her Transfiguration notes to the floor. Orion picked them up absently and settled on his heels beside the couch she had been reclining in. The Room of Requirement changed every time they entered, she had been first this time, so it was uncannily similar to her boudoir at home, with cream silk curtains and rose coloured furniture Orion despised.

"What do you think?" he asked seriously. His tone was measured, but there was the faintest frisson of anxiety detectable if you knew him well; and none knew him better than she.

"I don't know," she confessed, dropping her eyes to the ground to avoid the disappointment in his eyes. He took her hand in his and stroked hers gently with his thumb.

"We love each other. Why should we wait until we graduate to tell the world that?"

"Orion, you know I love you. But we fight. All the time,"

"Not all the-"

"We do darling. I've returned your ring once, I never want to again," she assured him, meeting his gaze tremulously. He was frowning slightly, and she had an almost irresistible urge to reach out and physically smooth away the creases on his handsome face. Half the girls in Hogwarts would commit a crime to be in her place; he was rich, good looking, well bred and could converse on a number of levels. And he could dance. So why was she hesitating?

"It won't happen again," he said suddenly, face clearing. "You are my everything; every thought and plan comes back to you. I want people to know that you are mine,"

"I'm not a possession," she flared, touched by the sentiment but irked by the expression.

"I know," he said soothingly, tucking one glossy curl behind her ear. "But I want to look after you, keep you safe,"

"I can look after myself," she protested. He silenced her with a kiss, enfolding her to him with an urgency that surprised her.

"Where is this coming from?," she murmured against his lips. He failed to reply, but held her even more tightly. She slipped free, moving away so they were centimeters, approaching inches, apart.

"It's the war, isn't it?" she realized with the sixth sense perceptive women often have. He nodded curtly, his face uncharacteristically wan. Despite this, he looked very young and she had the sudden mad desire to laugh. They were playing at being grownups; they had tumbled into this heedlessly, and now play was becoming truth and the world, which she left behind every time she stepped into this room, had caught up to her. She said no more, but returned to the safe haven of her fiancés arms. Words, after all, are unnecessary.

* * *

"But you're seventeen!" Juliet said blankly, sitting down abruptly on her bed.

"The Fawcetts are our age and already married," pointed out Amy, twirling one curl around her finger on her own four poster.

"Yes, but I thought only crazy purebloods – I mean, I know you're pureblood, but I never counted as you as one of those – that is to say, I… Oh curse it," bumbled Juliet.

Amy merely laughed, a low exultant sound.

"I never saw myself marrying this young either. Augusta will be livid; she always wanted to be first."

"Are you sure about this?" Juliet pressed, all traces of dreaminess gone from her eyes.

"I wouldn't have agreed otherwise," Amy said coolly.

Noting the slight furrow in her brow, Juliet walked over to her and curled up on the corner of Amy's bed.

"It's just very soon," she said frankly. She had barely seen Amy in the week since their Hogsmeade trip, but she had not expected such an announcement for a few months at earliest.

Amelia lifted her head imperiously.

"It's the way things are done among us," she said. Throwing tact to the winds, she swung her feet off the bed to stand upright and face Minerva, who had been very quiet since the announcement. Min had been leaning against one of her bed's poster, she straightened as Amy confronted her.

"You don't approve," Amy said bluntly.

Min's mouth twitched involuntarily and she fiddled with her tartan dressing gown before answering.

"I just want you to be happy, dearest,"

"I will be. I love him. There is never going to be anybody else for me,"

The words rang in the air as Amy's voice rose, and Juliet shivered suddenly, goosebumps rippling her skin, though neither Amy or Min noticed, locked as they were in a staring competition.

"There's a war. People rush into things during wartime, do things they later regret-" began Min.

"I will never regret marrying Orion," Amy said steadily.

"You don't know that," Min said carefully. "No one can see the future. We're seventeen, how can you be sure you will always love him?"

"Just because you are too afraid to let anyone in does not mean I am!" Amy flung back.

"This is not about Minerva," interjected Juliet, standing up as well.

"What?" snapped Min, at the same time as Amy laughed derisively. Juliet quailed at their furious expressions and sat back down, opening and closing her mouth.

"Of course it's about Min," drawled Amy. "What isn't? Just for once, for once let me have the spotlight Minerva. Let me be happy, and uncomplicated and not have to over think absolutely everything. Is that really too much to ask?" demanded Amy.

Min's jaw dropped.

"Is that really how you feel?" she asked numbly. She turned to Juliet, who was biting her lip in agitation.

"Amy, you fight with Orion all the time," Juliet said softly. "You know-"

"Why are you so unsupportive?" raged Amy. "Is it because he's a Slytherin? Do you really take house rivalry that seriously?"

"Don't be absurd," snapped Min. The numb shock that had held her in paralysis was fading and she was beginning to get truly angry.

"Is that why you keep turning Caradoc down?," goaded Amy, apparently pushed past all restraint.

Min gasped despite herself.

"My friendship with Dearborn is _not_ the issue here," she snapped, eyes narrowing as she glared at Amelia. "I'm not in a relationship. You are. Stop deflecting the topic," she said sternly, refusing to let herself feel hurt.

Amy shook her head in disbelief.

"You're so blind," she said finally. "Face the truth Minerva. Either you know nothing of love, or you've lost your own because you are too stubborn to see what is in front of you". Amy closed her mouth abruptly, as if she had said more than she intended, but did not back down. The stunned silence was broken by Juliet explosion.

"You go too far," she said with more anger in her quiet voice either girl had ever heard. "You owe Minerva an apology".

Amy shrugged her shoulders. Her hair had fallen out of its French twist; her cheeks were stained red and her eyes too bright.

"You're a muggleborn," she said with a weariness that stung more than anger would. "You haven't been brought up in our world. This is how it has always been, how things have worked for centuries". She did not look at Min as she turned and made for the door, and her parting shot was directed at both girls.

"I don't know why I expected either of you to understand".

Resisting the urge to throw a hex in Amy's direction, Min glanced over at Juliet, still reeling. They never fought. Squabbled all the time, bickered daily, but never anything approaching a proper division. Juliet had a shell shocked, crumpled expression that Min was sure was mirrored on her own face.

"She didn't mean it," Min said hollowly.

"She knows not what she does," Juliet said, more to herself than Min.

Min hesitated, and then committed herself. They had already plunged deep into Inferi infested waters, how much worse could it get?

"Do you think she's right?'

Juliet's head jerked and she stared at Min incredulously.

"About Cad- Dearborn," Min clarified hastily. "That I'm not capable of love."

Juliet was shaking her head before she was even finished.

"Oh Minerva, of course you're not!"

"But you said 'it's not about me', thereby implying there is something wrong with me," Min pressed.

Juliet, wrung out emotionally by the last half hour of pure drama, let out a scream of exasperation.

"You're so smart, yet so stupid! Honestly, Minerva, do you have any idea, any idea of all of how lucky you are?"

Min, who had stood straight and furious during Amelia's tirade, flinched at the raw emotion on the normally sunny Juliet's face.

"Juliet-"

"No. For once, you will listen to me. I have kept quiet, and I have said nothing for far too long now. Caradoc adores you. He fights it, probably as much as you do, but that doesn't change it"

"He doesn't! He is such a-"

"You throw it back in his face every time. You don't let him in, you barely let us in," continued Juliet inexorably.

"Not true!"

"Isn't it?"

Min tried desperately to order her thoughts, which were scattered about the four corners of the earth.

"He's gone out with half the girls of Hogwarts; I refuse to be another notch on his wand!"

"It's not the same with you, and you know it". Minerva gaped at her, hardly able to believe that delicate Juliet could be so firm. She scrambled for the first argument that came to mind.

"He hasn't spoken to me since I agreed to go to the ball with him!" she half shrieked, furious with Caradoc, with Amy, with Juliet, and with herself for the hot, angry tears that were welling in her eyes.

"He has is flaws – my God, he's arrogant even for a Slytherin – but I would give anything, anything to have someone look at me the way he looks at you," Juliet burst out. Her words tripped over each other, as if she once she had opened the floodgates of her opinions, they were gushing forth too fast for her to control.

"But we're seventeen! We haven't lived, we're not old enough to – to love," Min said, wincing as the word 'love' crossed her lips.

Juliet sighed and ran a hand through her tangled hair.

"Tell me this, Min," she said more gently. "How would you feel if he disappeared from your world completely? If he vanished and you never saw or heard from him again?"

Min stared at her unseeingly as Juliet's words penetrated through the ragged shield she kept up to preserve her serenity. They seemed to lodge themselves in her skull with total disregard for time and play on a loop _'if he disappeared….never saw or heard from again…'_. Despite her best efforts, images of Caradoc; smirking at her with his infuriatingly smug grin, tousling his dull gold hair, looking out into the distance with a wistful expression few had ever seen, played behind her eyelids as if they belonged there. She blinked furiously, turning away from Juliet.

"I don't want to talk about," she said frostily. "Not now, not ever." She swept out of the room, and wondered whether the traces of all the heartbreak suffered by all the girls to ever live in Gryffindor tower marked the very walls of the dorms. If so, they had just added to it.

* * *

The office of the Heads was a refuge of order and sanity. A spacious room hung with tapestries of all four houses, it was brimming with neatly stacked bookcases and filing cabinets. Various heads over the centuries had wrangled for the addition of a fireplace, a collection of mismatching furniture, and the service of their own houself. Alex Prewett hummed contentedly and off tune as he turned the pages of the huge, yellowing tome in front of him. His eyes were beginning to blur slightly, but he could recite all of Galpollet's laws and almost understood Verdanus's theorem. Life was good. In fact, life was great. Ignatius Wood and Indira Patil were no longer going steady, or even speaking to each other, resulting in a reshuffling of patrols, but after multiple conflicts, he had finally devised a patrol schedule everyone was resigned to. Altair McMillan was still in the hospital wing after being jinxed by little Griselda Marchbanks (a feat which lost her 30 points for violence, but 10 for impressive spellwork) but Tom Riddle had graciously volunteered to take on McMillan's night patrols. Alex felt the satisfaction that came from solving particularly difficult Arithmancy puzzles, or deciphering truly obscure runes when he reviewed what he had accomplished that day. In addition to sorting out squabbling prefects, he had finally convinced Selena Nott her feelings would be better directed elsewhere, after weeks of nagging he had persuaded his best friend Roger to join his handpicked team of tutors. For some reason there was an alarming number of students, overwhelmingly female, wanting his tutelage this year. Despite this, all his essays were polished to perfection, and he could now curl up with a fascinating book on Transylvanian politics during the vampire wars.

Life was ordered. Life was going to plan. He would graduate with honours, go into the Ministry and make something of himself. He would work hard and win the girl of his dreams. Eventually. For now, day to day life was challenging enough. Organisation for the ball was progressing nicely, his NEWT scores were promising, and maybe today would be the day Amelia Bones would come to her sense and realize Orion Black was a spineless pretty boy.

He let him consider that for a good fifteen seconds .. how the slight frown marring her otherwise charming face would vanish.. her impish grins, accompanied by a mischievous twinkle in her deep brown eyes, could be directed at somebody else.. if she could ever tear her eyes away from Black. From where he sat, sprawled behind his desk, he could just make out his reflection in the oval mirror hanging behind the door. He was slim, dark haired and with regular features; ordinary but hardly repulsive. Perhaps he didn't have the dark glamour or casual elegance of Black. Perhaps he didn't have time to flirt or make a move, but he was Head boy and had responsibilities to take care of.

There were plenty of girls willing to accept his escort to Hogsmeade or a dance, but there was no point. None of them were her. Their laughs were false, their smiles didn't make his breath hitch and he despised their paint, pretense, and willingness to go out with him merely because he was Head boy. She was not like that, or she would not be with Black, but he could not help but wish, while hating the desperation he saw in his own reflection, that she had at least noticed whatever they saw in him.

The door flew open with a crash and he first jumped, flushing at being caught gazing at his own reflection and then wincing as the mirror shattered into a thousand pieces as the door rebounded off the wall.

"_Reparo;_" he muttered, still red cheeked. He dared to look up and then struggled to keep his mouth closed.

He knew Min better than she realized, she was after all the best friend of the girl he had silently observed for years now. He enjoyed her dry wit in classes and could not believe her temper to be as bad as Avery made it out to be, or that she was the ice queen that rumour labeled her. He had noted and admired her poise; whatever the situation was, Minerva was in control. Which is why it was a shock to see her storm in with too bright eyes and then look around blankly as if unaware of how she got there. The lost look in her eyes goaded him into action and he kicked back his chair and approached her carefully, as if she was a skittish colt that would bolt. Dippet had expressed concerns about her managing her staggering workload that he had laughed off – what else were timeturners for? But he would not let her break. She was far too strong to snap now.

"What is it?" he asked gently.

She shook her head, misery clogging her throat in a hot thick lump. He took her arm and led her gently to an armchair. She sat there for a few moments before she finally opened her mouth.

"I got an A in Transfiguration," she said pitifully, bursting into tears.

Six and half minutes later, a messenger to the Heads study would find a thoroughly terrified Head Boy gingerly patting the Head Girl's shoulder and she sobbed into his robes. Very few in the castle believed Min McGonagall physically capable of tears, but since it is a truth universally acknowledged that a romance between any Heads is not merely romantic, but destined, it took approximately thirty seconds for news of their secret engagement to churn the rumour mills frantically. In forty more it was accepted that Alex was marrying her because she was 'in a family way', thus explaining the foul mood of one Caradoc Dearborn. However it was not the frenzied fabrications that McGonagall and Prewett were to remember from that day. Thoroughly ashamed of herself, Min gathered the shreds of her courage and told him the news she instinctively knew he did not want to hear, but must eventually.

"Amelia's getting married to Black," she tells him with far too much sympathy in her green gaze.

And just like that, his perfectly ordered world and carefully constructed plans for the future came crashing down about him.

* * *

**Please review. It makes me smile and want to publish more of what I write. Also: stalk my author page : new stories galore!**


	11. Signs

**IMPORTANT AN: Next new Ripples Chapter – 'TWELVE' is actually going to be inserted BEFORE Christmas – a NEW Chapter 4 out of 12 (very silly, but something I've wanted to do for a while to better characterize the boys. Many apologies) **

* * *

_It was with extreme difficulty I managed to weave together an account of the infamous ball of 1944. This was partly due to the emotionally charged nature of the memories which were further damaged by hindsight. I have striven to include all the moments of significance I could uncover, for that day was not merely the day of a dance, but a day in which the first signs of the future became clear to those who could see._

_Step forward, unbottle the vial and relive the waking dream._

* * *

Alex Prewett smiled as he surveyed the Ravenclaw common room. The movement of muscles felt strange, and he rubbed his freshly shaven jaw as he ran his eyes around the disparate group. He slid past the first years, who were hunched over miniature cauldrons and spared a smile for the seventh years, who were either stretched out in ostentatious inactivity or frantically scribbling practice NEWT papers. The former group would be individually sneaking down in the middle of the night to feverishly crack open their textbooks while no one was looking, while the latter were headed towards lifetime addictions to Soothing Draughts. It was by the fireplace; no man's territory, that he found the man he was looking for.

"Roger," he drew out the word. Roger Longbottom put down _Hogwarts, A History_ with a long suffering sigh to survey his best mate sardonically.

"Oh good, you've bathed!" he said brightly. "Does this mean you've stopped moping, or is this the final preparation before your ritual suicide?"

Alex ignored him; Roger was alone in the conviction that he was funny.

"I need a favour," Alex admitted. "I wouldn't ask you, but I can't bring myself to burden Minerva further."

Roger closed his book. "This is sounding like work. I'm morally opposed to work, you know that."

"I want you to tutor Augusta Bones," Alex said abruptly. Indira Patil sent him a charming smile from the other side of the fireplace and he nodded absently, his attention fixed on Roger, whose cheery face had become carefully blank behind his thick black glasses.

"Alright then," he shrugged.

"You're not going to argue?" Alex asked, hardly able to believe his luck. Roger opened his mouth to quip back but Alex was suddenly distracted by an impatient vibration in his schoolbag. He rummaged through it quickly, tossing a handful of parchment, assortment of quills and several thick books on the influence of Egyptian Runes on Roman onto a nearby table until he found what had been causing the tremors. It proved to be a flat square object the size of his hand, made of wood and intricately carved. Inserting his nails into the crevice at the edge, he slid it open to reveal a mirror within to receive a chortle from Roger.

"Since when do you carry a mirror around?" Roger demanded.

Alex lifted the mirror to his eyelevel. Instead of his own reflection he saw Minerva, who was looking harassed with windswept hair and still in her Quidditch robes.

"What is it?" Alex asked urgently. The mirrors gifted to the heads were meant to be used for emergencies, and Minerva had been calm, if very quiet and red eyed just a few hours ago in Arithmancy. Minerva took a deep breath.

"Meet me in Dippet's study immediately," she said quickly. "A muggleborn student has been attacked; I've just come from the hospital wing now."

Alex had closed the mirror and dashed out the door before Roger could blink twice.

* * *

There were a number of things Caradoc Dearborn had perfected to art form over the years. One such skill was gauging the minimum amount of work necessary to perform adequately in class, another was irritating Minerva McGonagall. Yet another talent of his was the ability to sulk magnificently. It was with this in mind that he stalked down to the dungeons and ignored the sudden hush as he entered the common room. The dull green glow of the ceiling instantly brought to mind a pair of eyes, and with the eyes came the face, and with the face came the voice demanding _What is _wrong _with you?_

She had not physically said the words, but she had not needed to. He had watched her close up in the two weeks since he had asked her to the ball; the slight hardening of her eyes, the disappearance of her small smiles and most of all the furious flash of expression when he hurried past her spoke volumes. She had every right to fume, he had avoided her assiduously and in defiance of Riddle's order.. but he had not been able to make himself break the date. He had almost hoped she would confront him, that she would be able to do what he could not.. but why hadn't she? Did she simply not care?

He found himself glaring at his door, and at Orion Black, who was leaning next to it casually, a stupid smile on his face and hair unusually mussed.

"I don't want to talk to you," Caradoc barked. Orion politely looked away as Caradoc tapped his door with his wand in a complex sequence but followed him in as the door swung open.

"Yes, well I'm going to graciously ignore the foul mood you have been in for the last week," announced Orion. "I have good news. Excellent even. I come bearing news that requires celebratory drinks. Got anything good stashed away?"

Caradoc threw his books on his bed and grunted compliance. Orion still had a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Why was he so damn happy? What business did he have looking as if he had been crowned king of the castle when he, Caradoc Dearborn was stuck in a cage? He turned to tell Black off and found the burly figure of Henry Avery, who was wearing a distinctly disgruntled expression, filling his doorframe.

"Where the bloody hell have you been?" Avery demanded.

"Around," Orion said vaguely, rummaging around Caradoc's liquor cabinet. Caradoc sprawled his long limbs in his favourite chair and merely glared in response to the further intrusion of his room.

"There was a Brethren meeting held. Without you," Avery blurted, stepping further in the room. At this Orion dropped the tumbler he had been filling with whisky and Caradoc sat bolt upright as pieces of glass went skidding across his floor.

"That isn't possible," Orion said flatly, ignoring the mess at his feet.

"I know the rules as well as you do Black, so don't look at me like that," snarled Avery. "I told them a formal sitting required all three of us but he quoted some subsection or another and all the chaps went along with it."

"And of course you can't actually tell us what subsection of the code it was," complained Caradoc. "What good are you, Avery?"

Avery flushed an ugly red but before he could reply Orion flung up his hand.

"Appendix Two, Section Five, subsection three," he said rapidly.

Caradoc blinked at him. "You memorized the subsections of the appendix?" he asked incredulously.

"There was an appendix?" said Avery.

Orion rolled his eyes. "The point, gentlemen, is that there is only one clause which allows a sitting to be called without all three triumvirs present."

"Which is?"

"Treachery within the Brethren itself," Orion said heavily. He noticed at last the glass littering the floor at his feet and fumbled for his wand. "Reparo," he muttered, and the pieces flew together to reform the tumbler, although the carpet remained dark with spilled drink.

Avery huffed. "I was going to tell you all about it, but since I'm apparently useless, I'll just let you ask Lord Riddle himself!" He made to stalk out of the room but the door slammed shut before he could even reach for the handle. He turned to find two wands pointed at him.

"What happened at that meeting, Avery?" Caradoc asked pleasantly. He was still reclined in his armchair, but his free hand gripped the chair arm tightly. Avery's eyes moved from Caradoc to Orion, who was openly scowling, before he surrendered.

"You'll hear about it the moment you step into the common room. Some of it," he amended, leaning against the door. "You know my Keeper, Charles Campbell?"

Caradoc grimaced involuntarily. Campbell filled the position on the Slytherin Quidditch team that should have been his. And he was a bad egg. He'd had the audacity to ask Minerva to Hogsmeade in fifth year. Caradoc still regretted not giving him the thrashing he deserved.

"He's been found unconscious on the edge of the Forbidden Forest by that overgrown Gryffindor oaf Hagridden, or whatever his name is."

"Is he alright?" Orion asked, mildly disturbed at the relish on Avery's face.

"He's alive, but our informant in the hospital says they haven't been able to revive him or figure out what is wrong with him. But that's not all," Avery said significantly.

"Get on with it," Caradoc snapped. Avery merely smirked at him.

"Campbell was wearing his brethren robes at the time."

"Are you having a laugh?" Caradoc demanded, standing up. Avery lifted his hands defensively. "It's Merlin's own truth!" he protested.

Orion met Caradoc's eyes under his furrowed brow. "The Brethren manage to stay a secret for centuries and then get exposed on our watch," he cursed, kicking Caradoc's bedpost.

Avery scratched his head.

"Didn't I say? The ensignia – all of it, not just the crest or motto, was ripped out. The meeting wasn't held because Lord Riddle fears thinks the school is onto us."

"Then why was it held?' asked Orion blankly. "Vengeance for Campbell?"

Avery let out a hoarse bark.

"Far from it. Turns out that Campbell's been hiding a few things, and Riddle wanted to make sure no one else was," Avery said cryptically.

"Avery, if you don't stop dancing around the topic I am going to hex you to 1945," Caradoc warned. Avery shrugged.

"Campbell's always passed himself off as a pureblood, innit?"

Orion nodded. "Campbell isn't as old a name as some, but they've still been around since the Founding."

"Yes, well turns out our Campbell's mummy.." Avery paused for effect "was a muggle."

There was a quick intake of breath from Orion and a soft 'oooh' of understanding from Caradoc.

"Can't blame the lad for keeping that quiet," Caradoc said soberly.

"He lied to us!" Avery said indignantly.

Orion looked at him in disbelief. "We're Slytherins, you fool."

"Yes, but you don't lie to your brothers!"

"Liar."

Caradoc ignored their squabbling, his mind working furiously. He had never liked Campbell, but the boy did not deserve to be attacked. The Brethren were supposed to be comprised of the purest of the pure; was Campbell's demise a simply cleansing of the Brethren, or something on a larger scale? Surely it could not extend beyond their house – could it?

"Out!" he ordered abruptly. Orion and Avery stopped arguing to stare at him. "Both of you!" he clarified, baring his teeth. "We have a ball to attend, chaps. Tonight, we dance. The mutiny will still be there tomorrow".

* * *

Minerva blinked as she walked into a common room aglow with brilliant colour instead of the sea of dull black she was accustomed to. She hurried past the giggling girls bedecked in silks and velvets and the catcalling boys in similar, if more sober, finery. As she flew up the staircase three steps at a time, she shuddered to imagine what a mob she would have had on her hands if she had been here to announce the cancellation of the ball as Headmaster Dippet had desired. Luckily, Professor Merryweather had intervened.

"It will only gratify the attacker and panic the students," Merryweather had said gravely, and not even Dippet could deny the Auror-turned-Professor's expertise on dark wizards. Professor Dumbledore and even young Professor Slughorn had agreed, so the ball would go ahead, although the prefects had been notified to be on the alert for suspicious behaviour.

Judging from the general disarray of her dorm; stockings flung about, one silver slipper tossed beside a red one on the window seat and the air thick with perfume, the other girls had already dressed and departed. Minerva hoped Alex had sent Juliet a message informing her of their delay; if the pity date she had thrown together on finding both of them single went awry, Minerva knew she would feel responsible, however illogical such a feeling was. She decided to take her time in her bath now that she had the dorm to herself. It would do Caradoc no harm to wait a little. Particularly as the only reason she knew their 'date' was still on was because he had a sent an owl informing her he would meet her there. An owl! Not that she cared.

Minerva felt no particular inclination to doll herself up for such a half hearted date, especially considering the events of the day, but her role as Head Girl demanded she look at least presentable. Yet as she pinned her last curl into place and slipped on a pair of emerald ear bobs, she couldn't help the slight thrill that ran through her as she examined her reflection. Her normally severe face was softened by the artful rearrangement of her thick waves of hair and the powders lent her pale a rosy glow. Much as she hated it, much as it conjured up memories that stuck in her throat, the green robes Amelia had picked out for her did look stunning. She would never be beautiful, but tonight she was striking.

Minerva strolled down to the almost empty common room to find Caradoc sprawled in an armchair. He rose fluidly to his feet as she approached, running his eyes down her long form appreciatively.

"You're not supposed to be in here!" she snapped.

"You look lovely," he said.

"How did you get into our common room?" she asked, refusing to be mollified or notice that his long hair had been cut and brushed into a semblance of order. Or that his eyes were slightly shadowed and hectically bright in his pale face. The pallor suited him, lent a dignity to his features she has never seen before. In his dove grey robes, silvery waistcoat and snowy white cravat he looked every inch the pureblood gentleman, and she felt suddenly shy. The he grinned and was again the incorrigible rogue.

"Sweet talked the Fat – sorry, 'voluptuous'- Lady," he quipped, offering her his arm.

Minerva took it without thinking, and then could not let go politely as they walked through the torch lit corridors. She had not been in such close contact with him since that Christmas night, and was keenly aware of the fact, and of the alien, but comforting masculine scent of him. What was wrong with her? She had never noticed how he smelt before! Her thoughts were so scrambled it was not until she reached the Great Hall that she remembered why she had been dreading this evening. Dinner preceded the dance, and as Caradoc helped her into her seat she forced a smile at the other two couples seated at their appointed table, none of whom appeared to be talking.

Amelia at least had made an effort; her mass of curls had been tamed and twisted intricately to flow down one shoulder, bared by her exquisitely tailored robes. A heavy diamond necklace even Minerva recognized as part of the Black set gleamed around her slender neck. She and Orion, dashing in black, looked as if they belonged on a fashion plate. Like Minerva, Juliet did not appear overly enthused by the evening, merely pinning her hair in a simple knot, but she managed to look lovely and ethereal in her silvery robes, particularly next to Alex, whose handsome face was darkened by a pained expression.

As the boys shook hands with varying levels of enthusiasm, the lack of greeting, or indeed eye contact between the girls was pointed. Minerva wondered masochistically which of the boys would be the first to notice, and how long it would take. Orion was sensitive to slights against Amelia, but Alex was easily the most intelligent, if currently preoccupied with pining. Surprisingly it was Caradoc who picked up on it first, his eyes flickering from Amelia to Juliet then back to Minerva with a clear question in his eyes. She shrugged, the barest movement of shoulders and turned back to her menu with intense concentration.

Even after the food had materialized on their plates, the silence was so loud it was deafening. The first person to snap, naturally, was Caradoc.

"Orion, old chap, what was your big news?" he asked after ten minutes of increasingly awkward silence. "We never quite got back on topic."

Orion beamed, a slow burgeoning smile transforming his normally brooding face and causing at least three girls in the room to swoon. "I was going to ask you to be my best man," he said slyly, unable to stop smiling. Caradoc dropped his fork with a clatter.

"You're engaged?" he asked, kicking himself for not taking up the odds Avery had offered. Orion reached out to take Amelia's hand and nodded. Prewett for some reason had started glowering, beside him Juliet started babbling quietly and Minerva did not say a word.

"Congratulations," Caradoc said sincerely. Amelia would be good for Orion; all of Slytherin House had noticed the change in the Black heir since he had started going steady with the Bones princess. It was as if she anchored him, her presence enough to steer all the fire and volatility his family was known for into safer channels. Amelia made Orion significantly easier to live with - at least, when they were on good terms she did.

Caradoc turned to Minerva, who was very interested in the pattern of the tablecloth. "I'll certainly accept the best man position if I get a dance with one of the bridesmaids," he smirked. At this, Minerva looked up, the most peculiar expression in her eyes. Juliet made a sudden hand movement that knocked over her flagon and sent pumpkin juice seeping across the white and gold table cloth. Alex Vanished it quickly, but Juliet flushed to the roots of her hair and excused herself. Minerva followed her silently and Caradoc was left to wonder what exactly was going on. Clearly the charged silence had not, as he had suspected, been the Gryffindor disapproval of their golden girl mingling with a Slytherin of his savoury reputation. He could have saved himself the hassle of small talk. Salazar, he hated small talk!

The silence returned and Caradoc noticed Prewett at least looked as uncomfortable as he felt. A thought occurred to him and he assumed the conversation could not get any worse.

"I'm honoured to accept, but I thought you would have asked Alphard," he commented wryly. The Black brothers were close despite their frequent arguments, whereas the Brotherhood was the chief tie linking Orion to himself.

Orion's smile slipped.

"He –ah- declined," he said quickly, not looking at his fiancee.

"You didn't mention that," Amelia said sharply.

"Well, he's just -"

"Minerva, have I told you how stunning you look tonight?" Caradoc asked desperately as his date returned to the table with a more composed Juliet in tow.

"At least twice," she said drily.

"Well that colour brings out your eyes marvelously," he said loftily, and then wondered why she glared at him and Juliet suppressed a giggle. Women!

He decided to give small talk one last attempt. From the looks of things, this could be the last time Minerva agreed to go anywhere with him.

"How is your cat?" he asked finally, smiling despite himself. Lady Grey was a fine old animal he had teased when he was four, talked to when he was seven and kidnapped when he was twelve. A strangled noise came from Amelia, when he turned his head he saw Juliet opening and closing her mouth and it was with trepidation that he risked looking at Minerva, whose face was carefully blank.

"She died a year ago," she said faintly.

Caradoc put his face in his hands and groaned. He would be quite happy to never have to emerge from the safety of his private refuge ever again, but Minerva McGonagall laughed. It was half a snort, half a gurgle of impish amusement, but it was such a rare sound that his hands fell from his face and he looked up to see even Prewett smiling.

"You're an idiot," she told him, but she reached out and placed her hand on his comfortingly. Caradoc did not see Orion's knowing grin or Juliet's secretive smile; he never noticed Amelia's eyebrows climb or Prewett's amused-but-threatening look. He had held girls in his arms at dances before; he had visited the talking pictures without once seeing more than five minutes of a film. His working knowledge of the shadowy corners of Hogwarts, like his affair with Druella Rosier were scarlet pages of his life story that should never have been written if he had a hope of the woman sitting beside him. Her simple touch; hand to hand, natural and effortless, sparked more emotion Druella's lips ever had.

"At your service," he said huskily, twining his fingers in hers as she made to move her hand away. With a start, he realized the music playing was not in his head but the sound of a swing band, and there were already couples littering the dance floor. Before Minerva could remember she was furious with him, Caradoc sprang to his feet and led her away, still firmly gripping her hand.

"You don't get to do this," she said he wrapped one arm around her waist.

"Do what?" he asked casually, as if her hand on his shoulder did not send tingles through his spine, as if the slight frown on her face was not as distracting as the ridiculously long lashes that kissed unusually flushed cheeks.

"You don't get – to ignore me for days – then turn on the charm – and expect me to swoon," she snapped between jives.

"You think I'm charming?" he twinkled, deeply gratified.

"Caradoc Cornelius Dearborn!"

"Yes?" he replied, taking both hands in his to execute a perfect Lindy Hop.

"You're a bastard," she breathed as she spun back to him. He dipped her low and pulled her back upright, unable to look away from the turbulent depths of her eyes.

"I've been a terrible friend," he admitted. The fast moving swing dances that had started the ball were replaced by a softer, slower music. Minerva hesitated, her eyes darting around the room. Alex and Juliet were chatting amiably by the punch table with Roger Longbotttom and his date Indira Patil. Amy and Orion were dancing very close together, staring into each others eyes as if they were the only people in the room.

Minerva reluctantly stepped closer and wound her arms around Caradoc's neck. He marveled inwardly at how perfectly she fitted against him as he drew her closer and began to glide to a more traditional waltz. For a time they didn't speak, but simply moved together, each knowing what the other would do as they did it. And as the music changed again, slowly, very slowly Minerva rested her head against his shoulder and they both knew this would be one of the moments neither of then ever forgot.

He could grow used to holding her like this, and the single most terrifying aspect of that was not that they were too young, or he too wild or even that it was dangerous. What terrified him was that the idea of weeks, months and years tied to one woman– something he had refused to contemplate his entire life, something no one would ever expect him to – did not scare him as it should, but warmed him. At this moment, when they were wrapped around each other closer than they ever had been before, it even seemed possible.

"We used to be best friends," she said almost to herself. "What are we doing now Cad? What game are you playing this time?"

He breathed in the scent of her hair, imprinting it to his memory. "I don't know what I'm doing," he said honestly.

"I don't know why I put up with you," she said half seriously, lifting her face so she was inches away from him. He had no idea what his face betrayed, but her smile froze on her face and her eyes widened. He had closed the gap before he knew it, rested his forehead against hers. They stayed like that, hovering on the brink, neither able to go back or move forward. He was not entirely sure of her – she was not entirely sure of herself – but he knew if he held her in his arms any longer he would do something that would fracture their new truce.

"It's not always wise to wear your heart on your sleeve these days," he said softly. "It isn't always safe."

She pulled back and he mentally kicked himself. He had a hundred polished lines and charming nothings he was used to deploying, why did they turn to ash in his mouth around this girl?

"What are you talking about, Caradoc?" she asked intently.

"Nothing," he lied.

"I don't believe you," she said simply. In that instant of challenge, that moment in which the two of them stood in a crowded ballroom, inches apart after years of distance, something changed irrevocably. All the half formed thoughts and buried worries that had been chasing themselves in circles around his head for weeks stopped and meekly fell into place. There had been no reason to hide from the world, to retrace his thoughts fruitlessly. His life was a simple problem, his difficulties had stemmed from his dislike of the solution.

Caradoc let his eyes run across her, drink her in. He had not lied, the emerald suited her, and she had blazed out magnificently in anger. He could pretend that they were normal teenagers and could dance the night away. He could hold her tight and let every boy in the room know that she was his. He could run her fingers down her smooth white arm, he could coax a smile he didn't deserve, or even another laugh if the gods were kind.

They could take together the first steps towards a relationship uncharged by unresolved grievances. It would start with a soft, gentle kiss before midnight, a whisper of skin against skin. It would deepen over the days and weeks spent hand in hand, in which a future rich with promise would begin to unfurl. Moments stolen whenever possible would conjure smiles Mona Lisa would envy. There would be Sunday afternoons of Quidditch that would end in them sinking in a breathless tangle of limbs and lips to the ground, there would be secrets shared, promises pledged, and there would be _time_. There would be time for graduation, and then there would be a time in which they had the freedom to go wherever they desired and do whatever they dreamed.

But he could not protect her from his housemates. He could not even offer her his hand; protect her as Orion was safeguarding Amelia. If in another world he had dared and she had run mad, still it would only draw her deeper into this poisonous web. And he could not tell her any of this.

So Caradoc brushed a slipping strand of hair behind one ear and allowed his fingers to delicately trace Minerva's cheekbones down to her jaw, and then he walked away, leaving her alone on the dance floor.

* * *

Two days after the ball, Minerva returned to her dorm to find a wicker basket perched on her bed. She opened it carefully to discover a small black kitten asleep on a tartan blanket. There was no note. There was no need.

**

* * *

**

A.N Please please please please review!

**Thoughts, rants, rambles and tissues all greatly appreciated! Every line from you lovely readers makes me smile.**


	12. Cracks

Change, when it comes, cracks everything open.

_

* * *

_

Recent interest in this project has proved most beneficial, not only for the continuance of funding, which at one stage appeared close to termination, but because it has lead to uncovering artifacts I was previously unaware of. One such treasure trove was a hidden cache of letters addressed to Caradoc Dearborn, only recently discovered. There were concerns about the validity of these letters, but after extensive testing we have confirmed that the dating claimed by the letters is correct, and the events alluded to in the letters corroborated by other sources. I am most excited at this development and dare to hope more letters and documents will come to light in the future.

_

* * *

_

_Extracts from the correspondences of Caradoc Dearborn, 1944_

Caradoc,

Despite your appalling behaviour at Christmas, the Rosiers have not withdrawn from the betrothal talks, in no small part due to the considerable exertions of your mother and I. We have assured them you remain Druella's most ardent suitor and the gentlemen we raised you to be. Do not disappoint us again. Give my regards to Professor Slughorn, an excellent man, that, and worth knowing.

Yours, & etc  
Julius Dearborn

My dear son,

I would like to wring your neck. Your half hearted apology has in no way mollified your father, who remains shockingly cross! As for your actions at Christmas – Caradoc how could you? I know I brought you up better than that, my son. Do be a love and try a tad harder in the future. This entire business is positively dreadful for my poor nerves. When your father isn't stomping around the manor, Mrs Rosier is dropping delicate little barbs hinting that Druella can do better, or that her son has taken it in his head to call you out, of all things! Pray don't get into any more fights; I trust that you are past that now.

Caradoc, my dear child, this has gone on long enough. I've protected you as long as I can, but it is time for you to grow up and accept your responsibilities as heir to the family. I would also like to see an improvement in your Transfiguration grade, as Mrs Black is under the belief it is somehow below Orion's.

Your loving mother,  
Isabella

Dearest Cousin,

I've heard some rumors fluttering around my knitting circle that you are finally about to offer for the lovely Druella. Congratulations my duck, I can't tell you how glad I am that you were not simply stringing her along; if your affair was the talk of the town, it's termination set the gossips aflame! It's for the best Caddy, you could do no less, and at least you actually like her! I thought Miles an insufferable bore when I married him, and now I know I was right! Write me soon, darling, and tell me all the escapades you have been getting up to – no one makes me laugh as you do!

All my love,  
Verity Greengrass

Cad,

Have you gone mad, old chap? Word around the club is that you are set to get leg shackled. She's a pretty dish and a half to be sure, but stand your ground, soldier! I know the family is worrying away at you so that the line doesn't die out, but you are barely eighteen, war or no war. You have your whole life before you, enjoy being single and um, sowing your wild oats, if you know what I mean, eh? Uncle Julius won't actually disown you; he'll just rant and storm for a few weeks. You don't have to go through with this, get out now while you still can!

Yours,  
Marcus Selwyn

* * *

'Lift your game, children," Minerva said disapprovingly. Her gaze encompassed Beater Lionel Greengrass, who had managed to nearly knock himself out with his own bat, to Keeper Owen McLaggen, who was rearranging his windswept hair in a pocket mirror.

"We have less than two weeks before the next match, and I cannot have you all losing your focus now!" Minerva snapped, her mouth falling into an unpleasantly thin line.

"It would have been nice if Slytherin had forfeited," Seeker Sophia Prewett said wistfully. The only other girl on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, her delicate, dreamy face and petite frame were a startling contrast to the burly youths ranged around her in the training room.

Broad shouldered Ignatius Wood snorted loudly at her statement. "Unlikely. Campbell was a terrific Keeper, but there are about four Slytherins backstabbing each other now to take his place."

"Even if he regains consciousness – which I heard is none too likely – he's missed three week of practice," agreed the youngest Chaser, scrawny but quick Edmund Bell.

McLaggen deigned to look up from his mirror at this. "Have they settled on a Keeper yet?" he asked languidly. "He won't be a patch on me, but it would be good to know what poor sod will be up against me."

"It could be a girl," sniped Sophia, raising her eyebrows challengingly. McLaggen sneered and opened his mouth to retort, but Minerva overrode him.

"Caradoc Dearborn," she said brusquely. The training room fell silent, the braver teammates, like Septimus Weasley, daring to risk a glance at the stern face of their captain. Rumors had settled in a thick carpet on the Hogwarts floors about the shocking intimacy displayed by the Head Girl and the rebel prince of Slytherin house at the ball, and speculation was rife as to the reasons behind its sudden termination. Regardless of what had passed between them, it was generally acknowledged (in lowered tones for safety) that both had been fearfully and wonderfully bad tempered since then, Dearborn hexing anyone who looked in his direction and Minerva threatening to dock house points for untied shoelaces and uncombed hair.

McLaggen, supremely indifferent to the awkwardness of the situation or oblivious to social niceties as usual, blundered in merrily,

"Dearborn.. is he any good?" he asked.

Minerva scowled faintly, her expression so distant Septimus wondered if she was even aware of it.

"He's an excellent flier, but out of practice. I still want – need – you all to be on the top of your game. Slytherin are training four nights a week, they are not going to be a simple pushover like Hufflepuff was!" she barked. She seemed ready to start a full fledged rant, which was prevented only by an impatient rap on the door of the training room.

Amelia Bones poked her head tentatively through the door and the already charged silence in the training room fairly crackled with tension. No one in Gryffindor Tower had failed to detect the chilly silence maintained by their two golden girls and their loyal companion.

"The Headmaster asked me to summon you," Amelia said stiffly, looking at a point somewhere above Minerva's head.

"Is it urgent?" Minerva asked in a similarly constrained tone. Amelia inclined her head fractionally. "He wishes you to join him in his study immediately."

Minerva nodded; dismissing Quidditch training and following Amelia back to the castle. They walked in silence, neither willing to be the first to break the silence. They were on the very threshold of the castle when Minerva stopped suddenly and touched her fingers lightly to Amelia's wrist.

"Is this really how it is going to be?" she asked impulsively. "Doesn't the fact we've been friends for years mean anything?"

Amelia's stony expression softened slightly but her voice remained firm.

"Unless you are wishing me happy, I don't want to hear it." She waited a moment for a response from Minerva. When none came, she gave out a bitter laugh and pushed on before her into the Entrance Hall.

Minerva watched her go with a sigh, and then straightened her shoulders and made her way to the Headmaster's study.

_"Ad perpetuam rei memoriam_," she said dully to the guardian gargoyles. She found Alex Prewett already in the study, deep in conversation with Professor Dumbledore, who spared his favourite student a smile. Minerva ran her eyes around the study, ignoring the nodding portraits but noting that not only was every senior prefect crammed in the room but so were all four Heads of Houses; Professors Dumbledore, Slughorn, Flitwick and Beery. This was no ordinary meeting. Minerva resisted the urge to fiddle with her hair. It went against the grain to appear less than immaculate, and in her Quidditch training robes no less, but there was no help for it.

"So kind of you to join us, Minerva," rasped Dippet from behind his desk. "Now we can begin."

"Begin what?" Minerva asked blankly.

Dippet nodded to Dumbledore, who pursed his lips under his sweeping auburn beard.

"The war in Europe is spreading – are you alright, my dear?" he asked concernedly, noting her sudden pallor.

"Fine," Minerva insisted between gritted teeth, although she allowed Alex to force her into a chair. Surely if they knew – if something had happened – she would have been informed. They did not summon half the staff and prefects to tell a student, even the Head Girl, that her father was dead. Did they?

Dumbledore's light blue gaze remained skeptical as he took in the dilation of her pupils and barely perceptible lip biting but he continued. "Many of the magical schools in the continent have been forced to close as panic spreads. Hogwarts has opened its doors to them, and refugees will be arriving any moment."

"Refugees – you mean students?" asked Minerva, the tight knot restricting her breathing easing.

"Exactly," Dumbledore nodded. "In fact, here comes the first lot of them now." While Minerva's attention had been focused on avoiding Dumbledore's too perceptive gaze and wondering where he found claret velvet robes, Dippet's fireplace had blazed emerald green.

First one, then another and another figure stumbled out of the flames, gathering sooty cloaks around them. They ranged from very young, with wide eyes full of mute appeal, to full grown, with bitter smiles twisting their faces, and there seemed no end to them, Dippet steadily ticking names off his list as children fell through his fireplace. Minerva was busy arranging mentors for each group with Alex, but one name made her look up sharply, her lists and plans forgotten.

"Rosier, Druella. Seventh Year Beauxbaton, will be staying in the Slytherin dormitories. Mr Black will direct you, dear girl. Welcome to Hogwarts."

Druella curtsied prettily. Like her companions, her face was smeared with soot and slightly gaunt, but her eyes were alight and a slight smile curved her perfect red lips as she took Orion's arm. She turned her head and caught Minerva openly staring at her but her smile only widened. Other students may have been forced to come to Hogwarts for safety, to flee the horrors of war and because they had no where else to go. Druella Rosier had come to Hogwarts to fight her own war, and everything from the glint of her deceptively soft brown eyes to the flash of her white teeth suggested she took no prisoners.

"Out of my way!" Caradoc snapped, fingering his wand meaningfully. The second years scattered before him and he continued to descend through the levels of Hogwarts like a dark cloud.

His dramatic entrance into the Slytherin common room went unnoticed, not only because the scowl on his face had become a regular fixture, but because everybody was far too busy assessing the strangers huddled in groups in their common room. Some of the more daring, or plain stupid Hogwarts residents had already slipped into motion and engaged the newcomers in cautious conversation, but none of them were of any note except for Riddle. Caradoc watched him from the shadows quietly, his eyes glittering with interest. Riddle had taken the role of a Slytherin leader on himself, he was bestowing a warm welcome on one hand to students he evidently considered potentially worthy of being sheltered by Slytherin, and condemning others to ostracism with a twist of his lips. This was not his job, and it was time the triumvirs of the Brethren reminded him that.

Riddle was smiling charmingly at a tall, dark haired girl – a Selwyn, Caradoc realized, probably one of his own second cousins. She was laughing at some comment he had made, and more than one of the older of the male newcomers, still rugged up in fur, looked distinctly irritated at the small court of newcomers that Riddle had gathered around him effortlessly. It was just like Riddle to show off his unorthodox influence and offer the selections of the newcomers his protection. The only surprising aspect to the scene playing out before him was that Riddle was present in the common room. His sporadic disappearances of late had penetrated even the fog of foul mood clinging to Caradoc, and his reemergence into society was not reassuring in the least.

Caradoc ran a lazy eye across the distinctive blue Beauxbatons uniforms, the patented fur of Durmstrang, as well as the scatterings of maroon – Warsaw Witches Institute, the forest green of Romania's Academy and the silvery grey of Austria's Establishment. He was not surprised at the influx of refugees, he had heard from friends and family living abroad that witches and wizards were fleeing the continent in droves. He had expected however that the members of his set – the elite of the purebloods – would have housed their children in their own manors and castles rather than allow them to suffer the oft decried plebian atmosphere of Hogwarts.

Caradoc turned as someone tapped his shoulder lightly. Orion Black stood behind him, with the most pained expression Caradoc had seen him wear since the ball a few weeks back. Orion had been irrepressibly euphoric as news of his engagement leaked through the school gossip channels, but as he shifted on his feet now, horror mixed with reluctance in his face. Caradoc rolled his eyes.

"You're taking back the offer of best man, aren't you?" he quipped. That choice had definitely sent the rumors flying around the school. Orion shook his head, his face remaining serious.

"You haven't had a fight with Amelia again?" Caradoc asked in dismay. He had not signed up for this amount of drama when he agreed to stand in for Alphard as Orion's best man.

Orion sighed and stepped closer to Caradoc, lowering his voice and speaking very quickly without pausing for breath.

"You're still best man, wedding is still going ahead, don't ask me anything because I swore I wouldn't say and she's scary, and I want to live to get married, but we're brothers under Slytherin so I feel like I should inform you that you really, really want to go look in your room."

Caradoc stared at Orion uncomprehendingly for a moment before the last part of his sentence sunk in. He turned his head sharply to look once more at the throng of new students, their colourful uniforms startling in the usual familiar sea of dull black and then he dropped his school bag on the nearest chair and took the stairs three at a time to sprint to his room.

The fact that it was still locked would have relieved him, if not for the fact that Druella Rosier, her eyes sparkling with trouble, was leaning against it, a dangerous smile curling her lips.

Juliet closed her book and her throbbing eyes for a minute, breathing in the familiar scent of her haven. Even the Ravenclaws, the only ones to venture so deep into the bowels of the library, thought she was quite mad when they noticed her at all. The Muggle literature section was not frequented even by the most dedicated of NEWT students in Muggle Studies, who generally picked the brains of their base born friends. However the dog eared nature of many of the volumes hinted at long years of love from past students. Juliet wondered how many other muggleborns had sought out this treasure trove as an escape from the world.

"What are you reading?" a voice asked and her eyes flew open with a gasp. Leaning against the Shakespeare shelf with a look of practiced contempt was a lanky youth with a Grecian profile she recognized, though they had never spoken before.

"Alphard Black," she said blankly, her mind working furiously. Had Amelia done something? Was she hurt? Surely she could not have eloped with Black less than halfway through NEWT year?

Black smirked and she let out a sigh of relief. It could not be anything serious if he was impersonating the Cheshire cat. "I highly doubt they've written books about me already," he drawled. "What are you actually reading?"

Juliet mutely handed over _Little Women_ before she realized it and winced as he rifled through the pages carelessly.

"What in Merlin's name brings you here?" he asked in honest bewilderment, running his fingers along the Shakespeare shelf. "These aren't even about wizards!"

She shrugged, a sneer of her own forming. Purebloods. Even Min and Amy had needed introductions to the great works of the nineteenth century. "It's a classic novel," she explained patronizingly.

"I've never heard of it," he protested. Juliet laughed before she could stop herself.

"You're a pureblood! And a boy!" she told him, still smiling slightly.

He shrugged. "You know, I have had a classical education. My parents just didn't think muggle literature was worth the parchment it was scribed on."

Juliet forced her face into a carefully blank expression as she realized anew the bizarre situation she was in, and who she was talking to.

"What do you want, Black?" she asked bluntly. He blinked, taken off guard by her sudden hostility.

"What's your name, Gryffindor?" he countered.

Juliet had to work at keeping her mouth closed. Swallowing her ire – the insolent brat, to stroll in here, insult her books and not even bother to find out her name! Snatching her book back from him, she shoved it in her bag and made to walk away, but he flung one hand out and caught her wrist in his delicate hand as she passed him.

"Where are you going?" he asked blankly. She had heard he was the intelligent brother; if he did not quite rival his great friend Riddle, he at least was not so far behind as most merely clever people were. She saw none of his reported wit in his eyes, which were a less brilliant blue grey than his brothers, but the curiously intent expression in his eyes stopped her.

"I need your help," he said abruptly, a muscle twitching in his cheek as he met her gaze squarely. Juliet felt her eyebrow rise.

"I beg your pardon?"

Black actually squirmed, a dull flush creeping onto his cheek. "You're best friends with Amelia Bones," he said roughly. "I've seen you with her before, I know you're close."

"Why do you care?" Juliet asked, although she had a hunch she already knew his answer.

He hesitated, his eyes darting around the library and glaring at the lone Ravenclaw in eyesight, who scurried away. When he at last spoke, his voice was low,

"She's not a good match for my brother."

Juliet's eyes opened wide and her outrage must have manifested itself on her face because Alphard took a step back and raised his hands defensively.

"I know my family," he explained defensively. "She won't fit in, they'll despise her .. modern sympathies and she'll be miserable as well as him."

"Your brother doesn't seem to think so," Juliet said icily. Alphard waved this off impatiently.

"Orion only sees what he wants to see," he said impatiently.

"They love each other," Juliet said staunchly. Amelia might be acting like a spoilt princess, and was, in fact, a spoilt princess, but she loved passionately and deeply and Orion made her happier than anyone else ever had. She fairly glowed when he was around and whatever Juliet's personal reservations about the tall brooding Slytherin were, she could not deny that he fairly worshipped the ground Amelia walked on.

"This will only end badly," Alphard insisted. "Help me stop it. Please." The note of sincerity in his otherwise gruff voice startled her and for a moment she lifted her turbulent gaze to his guarded face.

"No," she said, but there was a waver in her voice which made her cheeks burn and sparked a knowing glint in his eye. She turned her back on him and hurried away, aware of his eyes on her back. The line she walked was not steady but she persisted until she was three floors above him. Once she was sure he had not followed, she ducked into an empty classroom and threw her bag on the floor, leaning against the door and catching her breath. She was a good person; she had been brought up to do the right thing. She would do so – as soon as she figured out what that was.

* * *

**A.N. ****Many thanks to everyone who has favourited and reviewed, you are lovely and I love you muchly! Reviews make me smile!**


End file.
